PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

29 RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may 2023 :: RMTnews President’s column On Monday 22 May 2023, MPs voted to remove the right to strike from 1 in 5 workers in Britain. Northern Ireland is not subject to the Tory Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill. But 5.5 million workers across England, Scotland, and Wales in health, education, fire and rescue, transport, border security and nuclear industries now face the threat that if they take lawful strike action that they voted for, they can be instructed to cross a picket line to work – and be sacked when they refuse. This Tory ‘Conscription of Workers Act’ as the legislation should be known, is the latest sign that a government that can’t rule by consent, has turned instead to management by dictat. Unemployment rose from 3.8 to 3.9 per cent in the first three months of 2023 while average take-home pay fell by almost £1,000 a year. The evidence of an economy rigged against the working class is all around us. Retail Price Index inflation – the rate that prices including housing costs rise over twelve months - has been in double digits now for over a year. In April 2022, RPI inflation hit 11.1%. Last month, the Office of National Statistics released figures showing RPI inflation in the twelve months to March 2023 was 13.5%. Break that down. It means that the cost of just surviving for workers in Britain has been rising by over 10% every month for the last year. This is a war on workers. While average wages rose by 6.7 per cent, high inflation means take-home pay fell by 3.1 per cent - the longest wage squeeze since the Napoleonic wars, which in case you wondered ended in 1815. Real wages today are below wage levels before the 2008 global financial crash. And the current 15-year pay squeeze is set to last until 2026. As RMT members know better than most, these are the reasons workers across the NHS, schools, the civil service, train operating companies, and other sectors continue to vote for strike action. A Tory government trying to stop a strike wave during a cost-of-living crisis by banning the right to strike is like Cnut, King of England, Denmark, and Norway from 1016 to 1035 who ordered his chair to be placed on the seashore and told the rising tide, "You are subject to me, as the land on which I am sitting is mine. I command you not to rise on to my land, nor to wet the clothing of your master." But the sea came up as usual, and disrespectfully drenched the king's feet and shins anyway. Workers will continue to struggle against attacks on our class, by whatever means are necessary, including by non-compliance with authoritarian, anti-working class, Tory laws. More importantly, RMT members need to understand that the movement for jobs, wages, and decent terms and conditions that we unleashed in 2022 with coordinated strikes by workers across the national rail network and London Underground, is part of a labour movement that stretches across every economic sector in Britain. The response of our movement to the Tory government’s latest attack on the right to strike, must not be simply to put on a black armband and mourn the loss of another right for working people. Our trade unions and our class have been under sustained political attack from successive British governments to restrict our collective rights since 1980. That is a lifetime. We need workers’ rights to organise, to bargain collectively and to withdraw our labour through strike action. A united, determined working class movement can win this. Join the union. Alex Gordon WE NEED WORKERS’ RIGHTS, NOT CONSCRIPTION aggression had risen on the rail network. Beverley Thomas, Arriva Rail London said that the union must look out for agency colleagues on the network too as they were often forgotten entirely by rail companies. “I’ve seen situations where they themselves have been assaulted and have been forced to stay on the stations afterwards and not allowed to go home. “To see guns and machetes it is traumatising, and I don’t believe agency colleagues are getting the support they need,” she said. Other motions passed at the conferences included opposition to plans to re-purpose ticket offices and increased support for reps dealing with difficult cases. Officials and staff from across the union also addressed delegates from both conferences, including RMT general secretary Mick Lynch, assistant general secretary John Leach, president Alex Gordon and Alan Pottage of the organising unit. Mr Lynch focused on the national dispute with the 14 train operating companies pointing out that it was not over until the union got a negotiated settlement. He took issue with suggestions in the media that the union was opposed to technological change and innovation. “All of you have experienced change. But what we are experiencing now is attacks. It is ok saying technology is there, we understand that. “We’re not riding around on Stevenson’s rocket. We’ve had the age of steam, we’ve had in every grade…every single one of our members during their life on the railway, has been affected by change. “We cannot stop technical innovation, but it has to be in our interests, the interests of working people and it cannot be at the cost of attacks on jobs. wages and hard fought for terms and conditions. “This is not a battle against change - it is a battle against job cuts and imposition,” he added