RMT AT TUC

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2019 :: RMTnews 10 This year’s Trade Union Congress assembled in Brighton in the midst of a huge national constitutional crisis and possibly a general election. RMT’s executive had decided to put safety on our transport services right at the top of the agenda and to use the Congress as an opportunity to pull in support from across the trade union movement for our major national campaigns. RMT’s stand was busy throughout the week in the exhibition hall and we picked up important political and industrial support for our on- going work around cleaning, catering, safe staffing levels, the SOS2020 campaign in the shipping sector and the reversal of decades of privatisation and profiteering on both rail and buses. Our main motion to Congress was on rail workers safety in light of a spate of recent incidents and a growing culture of penny-pinching and casualisation that has left RMT members right in the front line. The motion was moved by RMT general secretary Mick Cash who set out the hard facts; “The safety regulator who is also meant to enforce rail safety is also the economic regulator enforcing rail cuts. Cuts that put profit before protecting safety. What we are demanding is that safety is put before profit and a genuine and independent regulator with real teeth to ensure that it happens”. He also paid tribute to RMT guard members across the country who have led the fight for safety and access in the teeth of a well-resourced political and industrial drive to make Driver Only Operation of our trains the default model. Congress applauded their resilience and the signal that they have sent out across the trade union movement that if you fight you can win. RMT’s motion was unanimously approved and that means that the broad membership of the unions is now committed to supporting RMT disputes and campaigns at every level. Support that Mick Cash welcomed and which will strengthen our position moving forwards. RMT delegate Karlson Lingwood spoke for the union in the wider debate on transport policy, shining the spotlight on the international scandal of the super exploitation of seafarers. Although campaigning by RMT has secured a government commitment to extending National Minimum Wage provisions to some areas there is still a vast amount of work to do to eradicate the stain of the Ships of Shame. In a broad-ranging composite on bringing privatised services and utilities into public ownership South West executive member Lee Rundle took to the rostrum to set out RMT’s demands in respect of the bus industry from a personal perspective: “I am a bus worker from the West Country and a first-time delegate to TUC and as a bus worker I have seen first-hand the decimation of our bus services in the West Country. Whole routes and services cut or withdrawn overnight leaving our services cut off from public transport. “It doesn’t matter if you are young or old or vulnerable and rely on these services. All that matters to the bus operators is that they can make a profit and no profit for them means no service for you. The composite was carried unanimously and once again it was RMT putting the bus industry and public ownership RMT AT TUC RMT delegates promote RMT policy at the Trade Union Congress on Brighton