PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may/june 2024 :: RMTnews Life comes at you fast when you’re Rishi Rich. Like a drowned rat in a thousand-pound suit, Rishi Sunak stood in torrential rain outside Downing Street last week to announce a general election on Thursday 4 July. RMT members and our families all have an interest in voting at the general election to ensure the Conservative party is defeated so it will take years to recover if it ever does. Since the world emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021, RMT members led the way building a working class fight back against Tory austerity, job cuts, pay freezes and attacks on our rights in Britain. Outsourced cleaners and catering staff, sacked P&O Ferry workers, London Underground staff, RMT members employed by Network Rail and Train Operating Companies, Hitachi Train Fleet Maintainers, Bus workers, Dockers and RFA seafarers all took action, protested, marched, or campaigned against attacks on our jobs, pay and working conditions. We provided inspiration to millions across Britain. RMT members sparked the biggest strike wave in this country for 35 years. We knocked the legs out from under Boris Johnson with our coordinated, national strike action in 2022, so when his own MPs turned on him, he collapsed like a house of cards. Tory MPs voted to replace Johnson with Liz Truss - a Prime minister with less stamina than a lettuce. At his last election Sunak was beaten by a Truss and a lettuce. The fightback that RMT inspired, exposed arrogant bosses, confident of political backing from a Tory government using the power and resources of the state to bankroll them and destroy our union, as Thatcher destroyed the miners’ union. It can’t be repeated often enough that all three Tory governments since the 2019 general election failed absolutely to achieve their goal of destroying the RMT. The Tory Party’s petulant response to being outthought and outfought by trade unionists is to make strike action illegal across railways, health, education, fire and rescue, border control and nuclear waste management. What is at stake in the 2024 general election for all workers is the crucial ability to defend ourselves and each other at work by withdrawing our labour. Labour’s ‘New Deal for Working People’ states: “Conservatives have consistently attacked rights at work, including through the Trade Union Act 2016, the Minimum Service Levels (Strikes) Bill and the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses (Amendment) Regulations 2022 – all of which Labour will repeal to give trade unions the freedom to organise, represent and negotiate on behalf of their workers.” Sir Keir Starmer’s authoritarian, corporate Labour Party will stick to the Tory cuts agenda, supporting austerity at home and warmongering abroad. Labour’s policies are deliberately indistinguishable from Tory policies in almost every respect. The one stretch of clear red water between the two parties is trade union rights. Under a Conservative government increasing numbers of workers will lose the ability to vote to take strike action and fight back as we did in 2022. A Labour government that repeals Tory anti-union laws gives workers a fighting chance. RMT will also be supporting independent candidates in the general election who we know support our members and our union including Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North. This matters, because whatever the result of the general election, our future depends on our ability to use our collective strength to support and defend RMT members. Without an ability to strike our ability to win for transport workers will be much reduced. On 4 July let’s give Sunak the sack and get ready for the next fight of our lives. Alex Gordon President’s Column SACK SUNAK “However, some members are being refused full pay under company sick pay schemes during cancer treatment. “With the current cost of living crisis whilst workers are already financially squeezed to the limit, our members must also manage the financial burden having cancer brings,” she said. Delegates heard that the rail industry contained many potential risks from exposures to asbestos in premises and rolling stock, respirable crystalline silica in ballast dust and from cutting or grinding concrete, and diesel engine exhaust emissions. Delegates called on the union to negotiate policy for all workers and the extension of the full pay part of all sick pay schemes as standard where there is a sick pay scheme in place. Colin Stewart, Plymouth No1 won backing for a call for the union’s neurodiversity courses which are currently only available to reps and branch officers to be open to the wider union membership. “One of the most significant ways to support neurodiverse members in the workplaces and wider society is through educating and equip our all members with the knowledge and spreading awareness through our education system in the union, to learn about neurodiversity and the unique challenges faced by individuals with conditions such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and others. “Neurodiversity is deep- rooted in the social model of disability, which states that people are not disabled by their visible or invisible differences but by the barriers created by society,” he said. SOLIDARITY Delegates took time out to attend a picket of National Museums Liverpool workers who had taken over 50 days of strike action since February. PCS rep Matt Exey addressed delegates about the long running dispute over demands for cost-of-living payments for all staff. “Staff working across seven museums in Liverpool are struggling to make ends meet because of low pay. “Wages have stagnated over the last decade and despite the cold weather we have had picket lines of over 60 such is the strength of feeling,” he said.