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Maintenance staff with Network Rail are set to take strike
action after the Easter weekend. This could bring the whole country to a
standstill, since all the train operating companies use the network. The issue
is safety. Though talks are still going
on as we go to press, no-one should doubt the determination of the RMT
membership to stop the management assault.
The first thread of the dispute is over 1,500 redundancies
for maintenance workers. The union argues that this will make the network less
safe. For years Network Rail has been trying to subcontract more and more
maintenance work out to private companies in order to save money. The union
argues that this process inevitably leads to fragmentation. Apart from lack of
expertise within the subcontractors if different firms perform different
operations there is no one body keeping an overall view of how elements of the
system connect with one another. This fragmentation could be fatal.
The RMT is treating this not just as a case of redundancy,
but as a safety issue affecting everyone who travels by rail, which is pretty
well all of us. They are campaigning under the slogan, ‘Cuts cost lives. Safety
first.’ They are right to do so. Maintenance workers gave RMT negotiators a
massive 89% vote for strike action if Network Rail don’t back down.
Maintenance workers have been joined in action against
Network Rail by the signalers, who have a grievance about changes in working
patterns. A few thousand signalers have demonstrated in the past that they can
bring the network to a halt. Now they too have balloted for strike action.
It should not be forgotten that Network rail is in effect a
100% publicly owned company, set up after the disastrous collapse of the
private firm Railtrack. Passengers might reasonably expect a nationalised
infrastructural firm to make safety its top priority rather than creeping round
trying to cut costs. Despite being nominally owned by the nation, Network Rail
paid out £18 million in dividends last year. But then say they can’t afford decent
safety provision!
Bob Crow, General Secretary of RMT, comments, “RMT members
were faced with a stark choice in this ballot. They could either sit back and
wait for these cash-led maintenance cuts to lead to another major disaster on
Britain’s railways or they could vote to take action to stop the attack on rail
safety. They have overwhelmingly voted to take action.
“Nobody should be under any illusions about just how
determined RMT members are to win this dispute and to stop this reckless gamble
with rail safety. Nearly 150 MP’s have signed the Early Day Motion opposing
Network Rail’s cuts plans and have urged the Government to intervene to call a
halt to this jobs carnage on the tracks. We are reissuing that call today.
RMT
is in no doubt that the cuts programme drawn up by Network Rail would drag us
back to the dark days of Railtrack and would make another Hatfield, Potters Bar
of Grayrigg disaster an inevitability. That is what this dispute is all about
and even the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has had to concede that the
botched attempt to bulldoze through these cuts has raised serious safety
concerns.”
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