REBUILD TRANSPORT IN LONDON

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2020 :: RMTnews 12 RMT has called on the government and Transport for London to turn the page on a failed experiment and build a world-class public transport system around the needs of people by investing in more staff. In a submission to the review of TfL’s finances being conducted by the government and by TfL itself, the union said that the Covid-19 crisis had finally killed off the fantasy that public transport could be funded by passenger fares and run on the cheap by cutting staff jobs. This delusion reached its height in 2015 when the government turned its austerity programme on London’s transport network and cut TfL’s £700 million a year operating grant. This made London one of the most fare dependent cities in the world and one of the only ones without any operating grant. At the point when the pandemic broke, 72 per cent of TfL’s income came from fare revenue. This is highly unusual for a world city transport system and compares unfavourably with New York (38 per cent), Singapore (21 per cent), Beijing (22 per cent), Tokyo (20 per cent), Hong Kong (37 per cent), Paris (38 per cent) and Madrid (47 per cent). In the same period, TfL has had to take on increasing levels of debt to fund capital spending on the maintenance, renewal and enhancement of its assets. This followed the debacle of previous attempts to lever in private finance to fund maintenance and renewal work on the Underground through the failed PPPs run by Metronet and Tubelines between 2003 and 2010. TfL’s debt has risen to £11.7 billion, forcing it to maintain a £1.2 billion cash reserve in order to maintain its credit rating and hold down the cost of this debt burden. Most of this debt is incurred in the form of either Treasury or market bonds to cover capital spending costs but some covers operational shortfalls too. The government announced a review of TfL’s financial sustainability as a condition of its decision to provide £1.6 billion in funding and loans to TfL to plug the gap in its finances caused by the collapse in fare revenue. This review would explore the potential for both short and medium term ‘efficiencies’ in relation to operating costs, as well as the potential for ‘alternative operating models’ to generate further long-term efficiencies, a formulation that RMT warned leaves the door open for privatisation. In July, Transport for London also announced its own parallel ‘Independent Review’ of its long-term future, also expected to report this month. RMT’s submission points to the fact that even before the pandemic struck, London’s transport network was desperately understaffed, creating a growing safety crisis. The union argues that the challenges of meeting our decarbonisation and air quality goals and rebuilding safe public transport for the future demands greater investment in more jobs staffing stations, assisting passengers, staffing trains and cleaning and maintaining transport infrastructure. In the name of so-called ‘efficiency’, London Underground’s cleaning is also outsourced to a US company called ABM. The contract was signed in 2017 and runs out in 2022. The contract contains a clause committing it to seeking to cut costs every year, while its performance measurement mechanism weights its success in cost cutting four times more heavily than its performance in cleaning trains and stations. In cleaning contracts, typically, around 85-90% of costs come from labour, which means that the outsourcing companies can only generate efficiencies that create savings and profits by targeting staff costs. Figures published in July revealed that ABM have cut the Full-Time Equivalence (FTE) of cleaners working on the tube every year since 2017. At the point when the Covid-19 crisis broke, London’s Underground there were 139 fewer FTE cleaners working on the Tube, a reduction of six per cent. RMT senior assistant general secretary Mick Lynch said that the reviews were an opportunity to confront the truth that’s staring everyone in the face, that London needs public transport more than ever and that means proper public funding and investment to create more and better jobs. “Safe public transport needs more people working in stations, more people helping passengers and monitoring safety on trains, more people working in cleaning and maintenance, and definitely not some toxic reversion to the austerity cuts and profiteering that got us here in the first place,” he said. RMT’s submission can be read in full here: https://bit.ly/2Qq6adk RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2020 :: RMTnews REBUILD TRANSPORT IN LONDON RMT calls on government to stop the cuts and rebuild London’s public transport around people ABM contract year FTE figure September 17 2017 - March 31 2018 2,314 April 1 2018 – March 31 2019 2,245 April 1 2019 - March 31 2020 2,175 April 1 2020 - March 31 2021* 2,175 *Forecast