BACKING THE PROFITEERS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2021 :: RMTnews 8 Tory Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps used an appearance at the Transport Select Committee last month to give his full backing behind the pandemic profiteers while dismissing the plight of rail staff with ‘insulting and ill-informed bragging’ about his role in saving jobs. Mr Shapps was asked by Grahame Morris Labour MP whether he was concerned about reports that whilst rail workers were subject to pay freezes and threats to thousands of jobs the government was paying out £80 million in profits to private train companies in just six months during the first bailout, as well as funding rolling stock companies so they can pay tens of millions in huge dividends. Mr Shapps replied that ‘the millions you talk about’ represent ‘a very small percentage, a tiny percentage’ of the cost of the entire system. Asked about what he had to say to staff facing a pay freeze and concerned about job cuts, Mr Shapps offered them ‘a huge thank you’ for their service during the pandemic but said nothing about pay and jobs in the future, while claiming to have saved ‘every single job on the railways without exception’. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that all Mr Shapps had to say were some casual and insulting ill-informed bragging on jobs and a big fat nothing to reassure staff about the future. “To say hundreds of millions in government funded pandemic profits is a small amount when rail workers are being told to stomach a government imposed pay freeze is appalling. “To then tell MPs they have saved every job on the railways when we know many jobs have been lost already and thousands more under threat to come is misleading MPs. “Our members have done their duty and they’re looking at a future where they’re being sized up by a government and companies that see them as a cost to be cut. If you’re a pandemic profiteer though, it’s trebles all round because this government definitely has your back,” he said.  Figures released by the Department of Transport last month reveal that in six months, the Train Operating Companies made more than £88 million in profit, much of which will go overseas. Eversholt, one of the three Rolling Stock leasing companies who own more than 85 per cent of trains running on Britain’s railways, paid their shareholders a dividend of £46.5 million for the year covering March 2020, to March 2021. The government has BACKING THE PROFITEERS Transport Secretary makes “insulting and ill-informed” comments about rail workers at Parliamentary Transport Select Committee