PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

reasons why our railway stations should be de-staffed and our ticket offices should close. Ironically, the conference itself was beset by technological problems which meant RMT was given no chance to submit motions. However, the RMT delegation was pleased to expressed support and solidarity with delegate Silvana Francken Belfi, from FNV transport union in the Netherlands, who has been fighting an eerily familiar battle over ticket offices and highlighted the ‘pre-Covid’ and ‘post-Covid’ government attitudes towards transport workers. The FNV has successfully used their campaign to aid organising and gained 200 new female members who were able to see the power in a union after their fellow workers bonded in opposition of government plans. The conference was more than just an opportunity to network with women going through similar problems to those faced here. It was also a way to hear and understand the issues faced by a massively diverse collective of women that should give perspective of RMT’s privileged position amongst the world’s trade unions. A discussion on transformative attitudes to climate change was particularly eye-opening, with women telling stories of attempting to commute through literal fires and floods. Others with harrowing reports of mothers left without childcare having to take their children into overheating workplaces leaving them at risk of injury or even death. Ultimately, in a closed session on the importance of women transport workers gaining leadership positions, the passion and determination of the women in the room really shone through. To quote the first black woman on the RMT NEC, Millie Apedo-Amah: “When you are in a safe place, bring your sisters to that safe place. When you are in a position of power, empower them”. Mich-Elle Myers of Australian union MUA ended the conference with a perfect quotation from poet Jasmin Kaur: “scream so that one day a hundred years from now another sister will not have to dry her tears wondering where in history she lost her voice”. RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: november/december 2023 :: RMTnews 23 T his issue of RMT News gives me the privilege on behalf of our union’s National Executive Committee to wish all RMT members and their families a happy, safe and peaceful festive season and prosperous New Year in 2024. As a union, we began 2023 striking to defend jobs, conditions, pay and pensions. We leave 2023 proud to have maintained our vigilance, discipline and accountability to our members throughout the year. Only RMT members and no one else decides whether pay offers are acceptable. But we can be confident that unlike another organisation purporting to represent staff in travel and transport, RMT never sold out railway ticket office jobs or gave a green light to Driver-only operation to obtain a pay offer. That’s not how we roll. We stuck together and fought for jobs and conditions to win a ‘no-strings’, unconditional pay offer from the Rail Delivery Group. We were right. Other fighting unions such as PCS representing civil servants and NEU representing teachers won similar pay deals for their members in 2023. RMT members emerge from the longest period of continuous dispute in our history with integrity and heads held high ready to take the fight to any employer or minister who decides to take us on. The National Rail Dispute that began in 2022 is not over. There is unfinished business. Our members have still not received a pay offer for 2023. Train drivers have not yet received a ‘no-strings’ pay offer for 2022. Aslef has called strike action in December 2023 in pursuit of their pay demand. As a proud RMT train driver myself, I remind all RMT driver members that solidarity means never crossing another union’s picket lines. I also want to take this opportunity to thank departing NEC members (Mary-Jane Herbison, Kevin Morrison, Wayne Moore, Millie Apedo- Amah and Sean Miskimmon) returning to the iron road or the ocean wave after representing you around the Boardroom table at Unity House for three years. This has been one of the toughest periods for workers in living memory. Emerging from the Covid pandemic in late 2021, workers faced attacks from opportunist employers seeking to ramp up profits by driving down jobs, pay and conditions. In the last eighteen months, the fightback led by RMT spread across public transport, post and telecoms, docks and refuse workers, lecturers, teachers, health workers and civil servants and saw the highest number of work days lost to strike action for 25 years. The response of our discredited government is a Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act that amounts to compulsory conscription of labour. Teachers in primary schools, for example, will be required to provide a minimum service level of 100% on strike days. This is a complete strike ban. A TUC Special Conference on Saturday 9 December will formulate our resistance to this authoritarian law. We demand employers refuse to serve so- called ‘Work Notices’ on RMT members and call for the next government to repeal the Act. But trade unions cannot coexist with this law. We call for immediate defiance. Finally, I congratulate RMT members who protested for peace and against the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza. The peoples of Palestine and Israel must have security and peace. War crimes being carried out in Gaza are designed to make a Palestinian state impossible. But Palestine will be free. In the darkest hour we have hope. To quote the words of Rosa Luxemburg before her assassination in 1919: “Your ‘order’ is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will ‘rise up again, clashing its weapons’, and to your horror will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!” Alex Gordon President’s Column TIME FOR OPTIMISM AND RESISTANCE