PARLIAMENTARY COLUMN

Parliamentary column SOS2020 RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: march 2018 :: RMTnews 9 handed in last month as the government decides on the future of the franchise. The petition – initiated by campaign group We Own It – calls for Transport Secretary Chris Grayling not to bail out East Coast by handing over more funds to profiteers, but instead bring it into public ownership. The petition states that: “Virgin Trains East Coast, run by Stagecoach and Virgin, has failed. Now, Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, says he will give in to their demands and bail them out to the tune of £2 billion. East Coast was run successfully in public ownership from 2009 to 2015 after the last private company failure – but then it was re-privatised. 76 per cent of us want public ownership and it would save us money. “Chris Grayling, put taxpayers and passengers first - don't give Virgin Trains East Coast a free ticket to ruin our railway. Bring East Coast into public ownership now!” Mick Cash said that the privatised East Coast Main Line had failed the travelling public and it has failed the workers who operate it. It has been a disaster from day one and has exposed once and for all the racket of rail privatisation in Britain. “There are RMT members working today who have gone from British Rail, to GNER, to National Express, to Directly Operated Railways, to Virgin/Stagecoach and who are now left wondering who their sixth employer will be in little more than two decades on this vital section of Britain’s rail network. “That is a shameful way to treat the workforce and shines the spotlight on the continuing chaos of rail privatisation. “This petition calls for a simple and sensible solution, end the fixation with the spivs and speculators from the private sector and bring the whole lot back in house, on a permanent basis, with immediate effect,” he said. Labour Shadow Secretary of State for Transport Andy McDonald’s recently made a presentation to the all-Party Parliamentary Maritime and Ports Group calling for better rates of pay for seafarers. Andy McDonald informed the assembled parliamentarians that there are 123,000 seafarers working in the UK shipping industry; 87,000 are ratings and the majority are paid well below the minimum wage to work on regular routes from UK ports. He made it clear that from the Labour Party’s perspective this was no longer acceptable. He said that, along with Shadow Shipping Minister Karl Turner MP, Labour was conducting a review of the shipping and ports sector. This will cover the damaging and unsustainable employment practices in the shipping industry, with a view to improving employment and training for UK seafarers – real maritime growth in the jobs and services that matter to this country’s future. Andy raised the question of where the ratings of the future are going to come from? He paid tribute to the work RMT had done to increase Rating Apprentice towards 300 – the highest level for decades. But this has been achieved in the face of some quite astonishing foot dragging by government. If left to its own devices, then it was clear that the industry would recruit those ratings from ‘low cost’ countries, with little regard for any other consideration. He also said that it was clear that the government’s Maritime Growth Study was not ambitious enough, as it completely avoided any discussion of wages or employment conditions for seafarers. He said that Labour was preparing policies around the National Minimum Wage and the Equality Act that would truly tackle the long-standing problems in our shipping industry that have driven a dangerous decline in UK seafarer numbers pointing out that these actions are in the gift of the government but Ministers seem either unwilling or unable to take them. He said that the Tonnage Tax had been a great success for ship-owners but there must be a more balanced deal for our seafarers from this generous scheme and Labour was committed to reviewing the terms and conditions of the Tonnage Tax, as part of a wider strategy to secure more jobs and training for UK seafarers on qualifying vessels and across the industry. RMT will continue to campaign to ensure that Labour develops polices to support UK seafarers and the demands set out in the unions SOS2020 campaign. SIMEON ANDREWS All at RMT were shocked and saddened by the sudden passing of Simeon Andrews on February 26. Simeon had been coordinating the RMT Parliamentary Group since its inception in 2002, first with John McDonnell and then the current Chair, Ian Mearns. Simeon was instrumental in helping the union maintain an effective voice in parliament and attended the parliamentary reports to the RMT national executive, the group meetings, RMT annual general meetings and RMT political schools. He will be sorely missed as an ally of the union, a comrade and a friend.