Iain Dalton, Socialist Party Yorkshire
RMT members held a protest on 16 March outside a meeting of Transport for the North against outsourcing in Northern Rail. The company outsources station staff, cleaners and security guards to a number of companies, including Carlisle Support Services, ISS and Amulet.
The RMT has a long-running dispute with Carlisle Support Services, owned by Tory donor Lord Ashcroft. The company refuses to negotiate over pay, holding many workers on the lowest-possible pay and zero-hour contracts.
Transport for the North is a statutory body made up of 20 transport authorities, business representatives and rail bodies.
But of the predominantly Labour-run authorities represented, only mayors Steve Rotheram (Liverpool City region) and Andy Burnham (Greater Manchester – who sent a deputy) supported the protest.
Labour promised ‘the biggest wave of insourcing of public services in a generation’. Northern Rail is directly owned by the Department for Transport, so what’s the delay?
As one supportive passer-by commented, “This government hasn’t done a lot of things they said they would”.
Trade unions should only be supporting elected representatives that follow through on trade union policies, such as ending outsourcing. The RMT should initiate a conference to discuss the crisis of working-class political representation, taking the lead as it did under late general secretary Bob Crow.
