FIGHTING FOR TRANSPORT IN SCOTLAND

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/aug 2025 :: RMTnews 6 “We’re at a crossroads today for Scotland’s railways,” RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey told Scottish TUC Congress delegates. “Public ownership of ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper were hard-won victories that promised to put our members and passengers before profit. But ownership alone is not enough,” he said. Moving a composite motion demanding that Great British Railways, he called for an enhancement of powers for the Scottish Parliament over rail services in Scotland. Addressing a transport fringe meeting, RMT Scottish organiser Gordon Martin called for “an integrated transport system where you can get a bus which links up with a train and then get a train which meets up with a ferry”. He said that this was possible until recently at Ardrossan “until the ineptitude of the political elite in this country absolutely destroyed it”. Highlighting the importance of lifeline public ferries operator CalMac and the islands they serve off the west coast of Scotland, he congratulated RMT CalMac rep Brian Reynolds and RMT Union Learning organiser Dan Henderson, who every year pushes CalMac to take on apprentices which kept that lifeblood into island communities. “Without that, these island communities would become a land of pensioners, and eventually you won’t sustain life if you don’t get young people there,” he said. Unions also backed RMT’s call for the restoration of roll- on, roll-off ferry services between Scotland and Northern Europe – with all ratings covered by sectoral collective bargaining. Moving a motion on seafarer employment and training RMT delegate Dan Henderson also drew attention to the high-quality apprenticeships programme which RMT had worked to secure at CalMac. University and College Union delegate Professor Jeanette Findlay, the author of a forthcoming report into the ferries sector, seconded the motion telling the hall: “Workers from all over the country want to work for CalMac, and they specifically told us that the quality of the training is a much-valued attraction”. In the context of the Ferguson Marine fiasco, her reports will be vital to bolster the campaign to protect pay and conditions, pensions and training programmes at CalMac and NorthLink, and make the strategic case for directly awarding publicly owned ferry contracts. In a barnstorming speech, Eddie Dempsey also argued that the rise of the far right had its roots in the destruction of trade unions and a retreat from workers’ everyday lives. “If we’re going to have any relevance in two decades from now, as a movement, we need to put the trade unions back into those communities,” he said. With Labour watering down its proposed New Deal for Workers, he said that it was crucial that unions stood up to assert their place in the national infrastructure. “We must have sectoral collective bargaining, and he must have the right to take solidarity strike action,” he said. FIGHTING FOR TRANSPORT IN SCOTLAND RMT calls for joined-up transport network across bus, rail and ferry services at STUC