Metronet Update

Posted in Tubeworker's blog on ,

Metronet has now gone into administration. Ernst & Young have taken over on behalf of Transport for London. Metronet's workers were paid on time, so did not have to carry out their plan to occupy their depots if their wages had not materialised.

While TfL is now back in charge, it is likely to be looking for an opportunity to hand the Infraco contract to a new private-sector partner. They will hype up the spin that this crisis has been caused by Metronet's peculiar incompetence rather than by the PPP set-up itself. Livingstone and Brown may bicker about the details, but both are committed to private-sector involvement, and left to their own devices, neither will do the right thing - scrap the PPP and reintegrate the infrastructure side into London Underground.

So we have to ensure that they are not left to their own devices and the current fuss is not allowed to die down until we get what we need: full reintegration under public ownership. RMT at least has put out press releases saying all the right things, and has told Metronet's administrators that any attempt to move the workforce away from TfL employment again will result in the union being in dispute.

That's good. But there is more that needs to be done. We should use the current attention to this situation to mobilise wide support for scrapping the PPP - a rally or other protest event called quickly and publicised well could attract hundreds, even thousands, of people. And the dispute should involve all Underground staff, not just Metronet employees. LUL staff are massively effected by the fragmentation of infrastructure work - they should also be in dispute over any attempt to re-fragment and re-privatise the system. And TubeLines staff should demand that they as well as Metronet workers should be employed by TfL/LUL.

We can not let one section of the workforce fight alone, especially while the rest of us are deeply affected by the issue.

Everything that we said about PPP has come true. The whole system is in crisis, and there is huge attention on the issue right now. It would be madness to wait for everything to calm down before taking decisive action. There is no better time than now to fight for the return of the whole Tube to public ownership.

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