PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

29 RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may 2022 :: RMTnews President’s column This month RMT launched the biggest vote for strike action by rail workers in this country for 30 years. It was the summer of 1989 when RMT’s predecessor union, the National Union of Railwaymen challenged the Tory government’s policy of cutting public spending and wages. Back in 1989, Britain’s inflation rate was 8.3 per cent, the highest for seven years, rising to 9.5% in 1990. Railworkers took 6 days of strike action as part of a national rail strike in June and July 1989 demanding a real pay rise, while London Underground staff began coordinated wildcat strikes in April 1989. The rail workers’ strikes of 1989 restored confidence to a trade union movement that had been driven back by Margaret Thatcher’s anti-union laws and the brutal use of paramilitary police tactics to suppress the 1984-85 miners’ strike, the lockout of the printers’ unions at Wapping in 1986 and sequestration and seizure of the National Union of Seamen’s assets during the 1987 P&O dispute. The parallels between then and now are uncanny. Not only do we see rampant inflation today of nine per cent, appalling attacks on seafarers in Dover, Hull, Cairnryan and Larne by P&O Ferries - the same company that attacked seafarers pay and conditions in 1987 - but a greedy and hubristic Tory government now as then, is punishing working people with extra taxes. In 1989 Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government introduced a ‘Poll Tax’ in Scotland, which she extended in 1990 to England. Immediately, thousands of Anti- Poll Tax Unions sprang up in working class communities across Britain to encourage workers not to pay the unjust Poll Tax. We burnt our Poll Tax Bills in local parks. We clogged up Magistrates’ Courts to protest against fines for non-payment. We brought down a Tory Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher who was forced to resign in 1990 after a revolt by Tory MPs who saw the strength of working-class opposition and feared for their own jobs. Today, Boris Johnson’s Tories tax workers by increasing National Insurance Contributions and tax consumers by allowing private monopoly energy companies to double our domestic energy bills. BP's profits for the first three months of 2022 also doubled to £4.9 billion, compared to £2.08 billion for the same period in 2021. BP’s record annual profits in 2021 of £10.26 billion prompted their chief executive, Bernard Looney to describe the energy market as “a cash machine”. When RMT members open up their domestic energy bills this month, at least they will know that the boss of Britain’s biggest private energy company sees them as his company’s personal cash dispenser. If he thinks RMT members are going to accept this daylight robbery, Mr Looney must think ATM stands for ‘All Time Mugs’. We must now call not only a tax on energy companies to pay for insulating homes and workplaces, but a cap on energy bills and nationalisation of energy companies. Attempts by bailiffs to evict, or cut off energy supplies to those unable to pay must be met with resistance, a coordinated non-payment campaign and a demand for cancellation of domestic consumer energy debts incurred due to energy companies’ price hikes. The votes that RMT members employed by rail companies return this month for coordinated strike action to bust the Tory pay freeze, to demand no compulsory redundancies, no job losses and no imposition of worse working conditions is the fight of our generation. It is also a vote to reject a future of pay poverty, energy poverty and corporate profiteering at our expense. Your vote is your voice. It will be heard from our union’s boardroom in Unity House to the corporate boardrooms of the City of London groaning with money they admit they don’t even know how to spend. Let us vote in May and march together on Saturday June 18 at the TUC National Demonstration in London to demand the real pay rise that workers need. Alex Gordon A LONG, HOT SUMMER until 1999 when a complete ban came into effect in the UK although it remains in use around the world and the World Health Organization estimates 125 million people are exposed to the deadly fibre each year.  The memorial was organised by Barking, Dagenham and Havering Trades Union Council, with the support of Barking and Dagenham Council, and has been funded by donations from local trade unionists, individuals and supporters. Susan Aitouaziz, Secretary Barking Dagenham and Havering Trades Union Council said: “We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of trade unionists, their unions, and members of our community, which has enabled us to place a beautiful piece of blue pearl granite, engraved with a message of remembrance. “To complement the memorial, we have also installed an interpretation board to shine a light on the harm done by asbestos, a scourge that continues to threaten us today in our workplaces, schools, public buildings and homes. “A Book of Remembrance will be opened and maintained to receive inscriptions throughout the coming years, so we will be able forever to remember the names of those who have died,” she said. REMEMBRANCE RMT Aberdeen no1 branch chair Ann Joss and secretary Mike Rollo laying wreath at Workers Memorial in Aberdeen on Workers' Memorial Day April 28.