Campaigning agianst cuts and profiteering on the Northern and Transpennine rail lines (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Hugh Caffrey, North West region Socialist Party
Members of the RMT transport union and others are fighting to stop massive cuts to rail services, including plans to take guards off many trains in the north. Everything bad about privatisation is about to get even worse.
The public faces fare rises and an inferior service. Station staff and train guards face job losses; ticket offices and even some stations face closure. Undoubtedly part of this agenda is to weaken the unions in the rail industry, the RMT especially.
Labour started this, commissioning the McNulty report, and the Con-Dem government adopted it wholesale. Pushing this behind the scenes is the shadowy ‘Rail North’ coalition of 30 local transport authorities, mostly Labour-run, working with the Tory-Liberal government.
This looming disaster is worsened by the intention to push ‘driver-only operation’ (DOO) on routes currently served by Northern Rail and Trans-Pennine Express. Train guards ensure public safety, help passengers including the disabled and those with prams or heavy luggage, and are ‘safety-critical’ trained to deal with incidents and accidents and emergencies including if the driver is incapacitated.
Bidding will open soon for companies wanting to run the Northern Rail and Trans-Pennine Express (TPE) routes. The government proposes that having no guards should be compulsory on the Northern franchise and optional on the TPE franchise. The RMT demands amendment of these proposals to remove DOO and other cuts.
Similar plans on the London Underground were dubbed “a muggers’ paradise” by late RMT general secretary Bob Crow. Undoubtedly, public safety will massively decrease, while ticket prices (and profits) soar.
Opposition campaign
But a powerful campaign of opposition is taking effect. Hundreds of thousands of leaflets and postcards have been distributed to the travelling public on days of action, with which the Socialist Party has helped. First Liverpool and now Sheffield city councils have come out against DOO.
A recent RMT-led lobby of parliament demanded that northern MPs oppose these proposals. Now the Northern Rail managing director has claimed “we’ve got no plans to do DOO”, while admitting his company is still consulting on precisely that.
The employers and mainstream politicians are on the ropes while the campaign is escalating. RMT members will lobby rail minister Claire Perry as the next step.
Privatisation has been a disaster for everyone except the profiteers, who have made fat profits from sky-high subsidies. Around £1 billion could be saved on annual spending by taking the railways back into public ownership. The savings could be used to upgrade the rail network, with real improvements. Ticket prices could come down and staff be paid living wages on decent contracts.
A democratic socialist plan would link up a re-nationalised rail system with the rest of the transport infrastructure, to deliver safe, swift, affordable transit for people and freight.
Lobby rail minister Claire Perry
Wednesday 19 November, 6-8pm
National Railway Museum, York, YO26 4XJ
Organised by the RMT union
This version of this article was first posted on the Socialist Party website on 14 November 2014 and may vary slightly from the version subsequently printed in The Socialist.
