Cuts for us, business as usual for them

Venue: Council Chamber, Camden Town Hall, Judd Street WC1
Click '1 attachment' / file name to download a leaflet advertising this meeting.

Speakers so far:

• Alex Gordon President, RMT Transport Union
• Andrew Baisley Secretary, Camden National Union of Teachers (NUT)
• Imran Khan Human Rights Lawyer, People’s Charter
• Tracy Edwards Youth Officer, Public & Commercial Services union (PCS)
• Candy Udwin Central London Right to Work
• Raj Chada Chair of Holborn & St Pancras Constituency Labour Party (pc)

TRANSPORT UNION RMT today slammed what it described as “the ConDem’s budget for the rich” – warning of widespread community and industrial resistance once people realise the full scale of the impact of the Government’s cuts plans for public services and the true cost for jobs and standards of living.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

This is what our two failed Infracos said about themselves before they signed their PPP contracts ...

"Tube Lines believes that it will add value to the vital public service provided by LUL by delivering on time and to budget."

"Metronet has the skills, the knowledge and the ability along with sound financial backing to help turn London Underground into a system fit for the 21st century."

If anyone had to eat their words, the bosses of these consortia would have alphabetti spaghetti on the menu for years to come ...

RMT members recently protested outside Whitechapel Station. The East London Line which runs through Whitechapel has reopened, but this once publicly owned railway is now making profits for privateers. Whilst RMT welcomes the extension of the line, we want it brought back under government control as a public railway, where profit is fed back into the service.

You can see more RMT videos at RMTv.

On Sunday 23rd May the extended East London Line will re-open, as part of private company, LOROL (London Overground). Obviously we support the extension but not when part of the tube network has been privatised through the back door. The whole of LOROL should be integrated with London Underground and owned and run by the Greater London Authority, elected by Londoners, which is RMT policy.

From the Labour Representation Committee ...

The left and trade unions have started organising a broad coalition against the incoming coalition government and its plans to cut public services, jobs, pensions and benefits. There is no popular mandate for cuts and, as in Greece, any attempt to impose them will be firmly resisted.

John McDonnell MP, LRC Chair, said:

Update: TfL have now confirmed this story, saying it will cost £310m to buy out Tubelines.

It is being reported that TfL are planning to buy out Tubelines shareholders and put the final nail in the PPP coffin. The Times reports that TfL "will buy out Amey and Bechtel, the shareholders that control Tube Lines."

Staff at eleven London colleges are likely to strike over funding cuts on Wednesday, May 5. Higher education has been hit with a series of funding cuts that now total close to £1bn, while further education has been told to make savings of £340m in the next academic year. You can read more about the dispute here.

I have sent the following message of support on behalf of RMT's London Transport Region ...

THE £1.59 BILLION takeover of the Arriva transport group was condemned today by Britain’s biggest specialist transport union as another worrying step towards the creation of a pan-European private transport monopoly.

RMT will be seeking urgent meetings with DB and its newly acquired subsidiaries in order to safeguard the jobs and interests of its members.

A BBC article reports how "Three directors of French transport and infrastructure group Alstom have been arrested in a UK corruption probe, the Serious Fraud Office says."

They've since been released without charge, but there is more on this story here.

Hundreds of angry Tenants in affordable and key worker housing owned by the Crown Estate across five London boroughs will hold a rally outside Crown Estate headquarters in central London to prevent the sell off of their homes. They will be joined by politicians of all political parties, trade unionists and representatives from the clergy. Confirmed speakers include Labour MP Frank Dobson and Conservative MP Mark Field as well as local councilors and trade unionists representing key workers. They will then march to Buckingham Palace petioning the Queen to intervene and stop the sale.

TUBE UNION RMT today demanded that London Mayor Boris Johnson take “urgent and decisive” action to terminate the Tube Lines contract on London Underground as it emerged that LU are calling in forensic accountants to “examine massive and secretive payments to Tube Lines’ shareholders” and after the company were branded as “ailing and failing” by TfL.

Bob Crow writes ...

RMT is among many unions and other organisations supporting a major national demonstration to defend the welfare state and public services, initiated by the National Pensioners’ Convention.

The march will assemble from midday at Temple Place on London’s Embankment on Saturday April 10, with the rally beginning at 2pm in Trafalgar Square.

With a general election likely to take place soon after, this is an opportunity to speak out in favour of defending the National Health Service, improving pensions and defending public services against cuts.

RAIL UNION RMT will today (Wednesday 27th January) hand a dossier of safety failures and maintenance cuts to MP’s as rail workers lobby parliament this lunchtime in protest at plans by Network Rail to axe a further 1500 safety-critical jobs.

Hundreds of rail workers have contacted a confidential RMT email line to say lives could be put at risk. The dossier highlights the worst examples of where the scaling back of work and changing standards in preparation for the job cuts are already leading to a serious deterioration in safety.

Tube Lines, whose late completion of upgrade work on the Jubilee Line has resulted in numerous weekend closures, has had a claim for £327m in compensation to complete the work rejected by an independent adjudicator. Tube Lines attempted to claim the money from London Underground. It felt LU was to blame for the work not being completed on time as access to the track was not sufficient.

RAIL UNION RMT today slammed the government for “presiding over a culture of private waste” on the railways after new figures obtained by RMT parliamentary convenor John McDonnell revealed that the cost of designing and tendering rail franchises since 2003 is a staggering £75 million.

The Regional Council Executive endorsed this resolution on behalf of the Regional Council at its meeting on 9 February 2010.

This Regional Council has been informed that Diane Abbot MP supported the former Mayor Ken Livingstone’s policy to privatise the East London Line. Also she did not sign the Early Day Motion regarding the issue.

If this is true then Ms Abbot has broken the policy of this union and the principles of our Parliamentary Group.

I've written the following article for 'Solidarity' newspaper ...

A decision by the PPP Arbiter in December may prove to be a fatal punch to private infrastructure company Tube Lines and the whole ‘Public-Private Partnership’ set-up on London Underground.

The New Labour government imposed the PPP at the very end of 2002, despite widespread opposition. PPP organised the Underground’s infrastructure into three groups of lines, and transferred them to private consortia known as Infracos, two to now-defunct Metronet, one – the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines – to Tube Lines.

photo by Paul Mattsson

TUBE UNION RMT today called for PPP contractor Tube Lines to be stripped of their contract with immediate effect and without compensation, and their work brought back under direct public control, as it emerged that their operations on the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee Lines have collapsed into chaos and recrimination.

RMT have no doubt that the poisoned relationship between TfL and Tube Lines has now broken down irretrievably with a sequence of events in the run up to Thursdays decision by the arbiter on the value of the next phase of their contract fuelling the case for the company to be dumped.