PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2016 :: RMTnews 21 President’s column I sometimes wonder what sort of a world we are living in when waking up to the news that Donald Trump had been elected as the 45th President of the United States. Sixteen years earlier an episode of the US television programme The Simpsons had depicted Trump as President, I’m sure the writers thought they were being funny; what a ridiculous idea that a racist, misogynistic, homophobe could ever really be the most powerful person on the planet…could he? It’s too easy to blame voters who ultimately put their cross next to the name Trump. The political ruling elite in the US as in our own country have taken the electorate for granted for many years. The opportunity to give the people a vote for change was missed when Bernie Sanders was cast aside for the supposedly safe bet that was Hillary Clinton. The repeated claim from Trump that the election was rigged against him and Clinton was corrupt was seen as the desperate act of someone that was about to lose the election. The reality was that the working class, the poor, the disenfranchised were crying out for change and I believe if Sanders had been on the ballet paper then we may well have seen a different outcome. As we have seen happening in many parts of the world, if people don’t have a chance to vote for progressive change, then they may well vote for regressive change as we have just witnessed with Trump's victory. In December MEPs will be voting on the EU’s Fourth Railway and if we are not careful the EU could leave us with an unwelcome parting gift. These regulations would make it near impossible to have a publicly-owned and run railway; competitive tendering of rail passenger services would be mandatory and our government must not be allowed to let this happen. On November 23 myself, the senior assistant general secretary and many of the national executive committee spent a very long day travelling around our Southern picket lines at Redhill, Horsham, Eastbourne, Brighton, Barnham and Shelhurst. We had our very own battle bus, with Wessex NEC member Paul McDonnell at the wheel (big thanks for all that driving). What a great day it was meeting so many committed RMT members, all standing solidly in defence of the travelling public's safety. I have to say, I think this Linked-In profile I spotted on the journey from the head of Govia is unusually honest! I was a failure at Connex I was a failure at South Eastern And now I'm a failure at Govia I'm a specialist in failure My package, including pension Contributions is nearly £500,000 a Year. I'm motivated purely by money - my own obscene pay package and maximising, profits for Govia. I occasionally have to make half-hearted noises about putting customers first, but make no mistake, what really motivates me is money. The Southern brand is now toxic under my Leadership, but I don't really care because Customer satisfaction has never been a Priority and never will be. I was reading with interest the statement from Paul Plummer chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operating companies and Network Rail, regarding electronic tickets and his plan that by 2018 tickets on mobile phones would be able to be used right across the country. Considering that currently 80 per cent of journeys are made using traditional paper tickets, are we really expected to believe that in eighteen months the millions of passengers that use paper tickets will all migrate to smart phone tickets cost cutting as ever is at the heart of this and we must resist any attempt to phase out ticket offices. “If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" Albert Einstein In Solidarity Sean Hoyle D’OH been paid for many months. International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) inspector Tommy Molloy also said that the vessel was badly maintained. “It is self-evident that no money is being spent on the basics and, as is usual with such shipowners, the crew are also not being paid,” he said. The Malta-registered Svetlana has been in Cardiff since October when it was also discovered that the Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian crew had not been paid wages. Mr Molloy said that one man had not been paid since he transferred to the ship in June and had not been paid the three months wages he was owed from his employment on the ship he was transferred from. He said that wages were the lowest he had seen for a long time and were certainly below the International Labour Office (ILO) minimum referred to in the Maritime Labour Convention 2006 (MLC). The owners were invited to sign an ITF agreement which would provide acceptable minimum employment standards. However the company accusing the inspector of acting illegally and insisted it would only pay what was written on contracts, however low. Unfortunately the MCA have appeared reluctant to push for payment of ILO minimum wages and the flag state, Malta, has declined to respond. Worse still, the third officer has now been sacked as the company has determined that as he is the only claimant who speaks fluent English it must have been him who called the ITF to complain about not getting paid. Mr Molloy said that he had similar dealings with the operator before. “They have been described as being at the very low end of the industry, and the MLC was designed to give seafarers protection against exactly this kind of sub-standard outfit,” he said.