PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2016 :: RMTnews A packed Action for Rail meeting in Manchester on the eve of the transfer of Northern Rail to the German state railway last month heard Labour shadow rail minister Andy McDonald MP say how proud he was that Labour’s first policy announcement under Jeremy Corbyn was to say that Labour would bring the railways back under public ownership. He read out a solidarity message from Jeremy: “I am sorry that I cannot be with you but please on behalf of the Labour Party accept my full support in your fight to protect rail jobs and services. “We fully support your campaign to oppose driver-only operation on Northern and cuts to station staff and rail ticket offices. “Labour wants what passengers and rail workers want, that is to protect the safety of stations and trains and proper staffing to provide assistance and assurance to passengers and a properly funded railway with fair fares, that’s why Labour is also committed to a publicly owned railway”. RMT general secretary Mick Cash also made it clear that Rail North was not the answer to the region’s problems with its current poor rail service and outdated trains. “When you get a gift from a Tory minister all you are getting is the grief that comes with implementing Tory cuts. “And that’s what this is about, localising the cuts while the profits will help finance Deutsche Bahn and this is not the answer!” he said to cheers. ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan said how the industry needed to have people with the skills to travel safely on trains. Referring to the joint agreement with the RMT on Driver Only Operation (DOO) he said: “I say quite clearly to everyone in this room, I started as a guard, my president started as a guard and we will have a guard on every train”. RMT parliamentary group member Lisa Nandy MP for Wigan was also forthright that privatisation and outsourcing “is not just a battle for jobs, as important as that is, this is a battle against the kind of low paid, low skilled and insecure economy this government is determined to create”. She reflected on Arriva, recently thrown off the Tyne and Wear Metro contract, and said that it “is not an accident, whether in the nuclear industry, steel or the railways, we have a government that is perfectly happy to have any other government run our services but not the British government. “These proposals, these choices are bad for customers, bad for staff, bad for the railways and bad for this country and we have a different vision for our railways. “To see profits re-invested in public services and rail services operated in public hands and to ensure they are run for people and not for private profit. Let’s stick together, fight together and win together,” she said. BRING BACK RAIL SAYS LABOUR 9 Parliamentary column