NO PAY FREEZES

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2021 :: RMTnews 10 Train operating companies, Transport for London, offshore, shipping and bus industries and Network Rail are all attempting to impose pay freezes and undermine terms and conditions despite praising workers during the Covid pandemic as heroes. RMT general secretary Mick Lynch warned that the union had some huge battles to fight in the coming period to resist an onslaught of profit-driven cuts. Transport and energy bosses are all being expected to follow the governments pay freeze diktat when current deals expire despite the fact that inflation is running at above three per cent. Existing negotiating and bargaining machinery is being ridden over roughshod in a drive to hammer down on the living standards of Britain's transport workforce. RMT's executive has launched the ‘Bust the transport worker pay freeze’ campaign and has moved onto a dispute footing with every employer seeking to impose both the pay freeze or the most minimal increases that take no account of the impact on livelihoods across the workforce. The campaign came on the back of new union research recalling that private companies on rail alone were making more than half a billion pounds in annual profits. “It is scandalous that transport workers, who have kept Britain moving throughout the COVID pandemic at well-documented personal risk, are being rewarded with the Government-imposed kick in the teeth of a pay freeze, even as rising inflation cuts the value of their pay and privateers sweat the network for an annual profits bonanza of over half a billion pounds each year. Our members are watching their pay lose value month by month while the profiteers are laughing all the way to the banks. “We are launching an industry-wide fightback to secure pay justice for Britain's transport workforce. It is time to cut corporate profits to increase our members pay. “RMT's executive has made it clear that the threat of pay freezes, job cuts and attacks on pensions and working conditions will be met with a co-ordinated campaign of industrial action and we will be working with unions facing the same workplace austerity to maximise our impact. “The government needs to lift the pay freeze shackles from the transport sector and allow us to get on with the business of negotiating pay rises for our members with their employers,” Mick Lynch said. TOC’S The train operating companies have been instructed by the Department of Transport to follow the model for public- sector workers which was announced by the Chancellor in the November spending review. Consequently, funding will be prioritised for the lowest paid rail workers, so those earning less than £24,000 will receive a minimum £250 increase. For those earning above this threshold, DfT has instructed the Train Operating Companies that there is no funding available for any increases to basic rates of pay. Dispute already exist between RMT and Serco Caledonian Sleeper, Greater Anglia, London North Eastern Railway and Southeastern. NETWORK RAIL RMT is also set for nationwide rail dispute in response to threat of thousands of rail worker redundancies by September and a fifty per cent cut in rail safety maintenance work. The union is moving to a national dispute footing with Network Rail after it revealed the government controlled company was planning for thousands of job losses and a wholescale dilution of safety standards, including a halving the frequency of safety critical maintenance work. The attack on jobs and safety comes on top of an attempt by the company to implement an open-ended pay freeze on Network Rail workers and a wholescale attack on working conditions. TUBE The union is stepping up its fight to win full funding for Transport for London with the launch of an online petition. The petition comes in the wake of the launch of an RMT campaigning document ‘A Future for Public Transport in London’, which makes the case for staff to be at the heart of a fully funded and rebuilt public transport system in London. The publication sets out not only the cost of cutting jobs before the crisis but also how more and better jobs are essential to rebuilding London’s public transport after the crisis. The union believes that the government must stop using London transport as a political football and guarantee its the long term funding required to move out of lockdown. NO PAY FREEZES Transport workers are essential workers but attempts are being made to cut wages and conditions