ORGANISING ON THE RIVER

Among the colourful charact- ers of the River Thames from a bygone age were the well organised and sometimes boisterous lightermen - who transported goods - and watermen - who carried people - along the river. Although this most famous river is often viewed as a highway of the rich, the writer Peter Ackroyd suggests in his book Thames: Sacred River that Handel’s Water Music was first performed in 1717 on royal vessels carrying King George I to drown out the ‘vulgar abuse of the Thames watermen and their egalitarian sentiments hallowed by tradition on the river’. The advent of an increasing number bridges across the Thames in the intervening centuries rather undermined their monopoly in trade. However, their successors are still with us today, operating on the capital’s river which is a good deal quieter than 400 years ago. Today RMT members work on regulated ferry passenger services which started in the 1880s and are now provided by City Cruises. The company operates seventeen vessels of various sizes on the Thames, with combined capacity to carry over 3,000 passengers. Over four million passenger journeys were taken on City Cruises vessels on the Thames in 2022 alone. The company was founded in 1996 but had been operated in various guises since the 1970s. City Cruises was bought by the US company Hornblower Group in 2019. The company was kept afloat with £2.35 million of taxpayer support during the pandemic and having survived that, the future looks brighter for RMT members on the Thames and across City Cruises. This is despite the fact that competitor Thames Clippers has a contract with Uber to use their 20-vessel fleet to provide river bus services. While City Cruises and other operators pay pier fees on the Thames, Thames Clippers are exempt from that charge, a cost that members should never have to bear. RMT national secretary Darren Procter said that there was a thriving trade union tradition on City Cruises services with reps in place and a healthy collective bargaining process to discuss vital issues including conditions and pay. RMT rep Thomas Gadd is a skipper on a City Cruises vessel and explains the lure of the river he has worked on all his life. “I started as an apprentice and I’m still here but there is always something new to learn working on the river,” he said. York City Cruises also operates on the River Ouse, with five vessels with combined capacity to carry over 400 passengers and hundreds of thousands of passengers use them every year. City Cruises also operate a service in Poole, Dorset, where the five sea going vessels have a combined capacity to carry 650 passengers. RMT organises apprentices, cabin staff, customer services, deck crew, mates, skippers and stock controllers and is currently negotiating recognition for all other pier- side roles. RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january/february 2024 :: RMTnews 14 RMT RMT helpline helpline helpline 0800 0800 376 376 3706 3706 :: january/february 2024 :: RMTnews news ORGANISING ON THE RIVER RMT carries on a long tradition of organising river workers with a colourful past and a bright future RMT rep and skipper Thomas Gadd RMT member Martin Welsh