Workers' Liberty

To understand the significance of the pensions dispute, we have to give it context. Pension provision for all workers in Britain is under sustained attack. Employers constantly announce that final-salary schemes are being closed and replaced by inferior money purchase schemes. Even these will be attacked when employers read the government’s Pensions White Paper.

The TUC welcomed the Government's White Paper on pensions, published in May. Only the week before, it had set out five "bottom-line" tests for the White Paper. Even on a generous reading, the White Paper passed only one.

Central Trains Management have stepped up their attacks.

At Norwich, a medically-restricted senior conductor has been sacked after attending a 'Capability Interview'. No matter that this newly-introduced process is not recognised by any union and that there is a decades-old procedure called Ill Health Severance which is designed to protect members in this situation.

Network Rail operational staff will finally get their 35-hour week - but after an unacceptable wait and at the price of being locked into a two-year pay deal. Many rank-and-file members are left demoralised after RMT stumbled its way through the dispute.

The restructuring process being forced on Italy's railways by EU railway liberalisation is causing a decay in safety levels, with a rise in often-fatal accidents.

Trade unions are fragmented, and there is a high degree of involvement of the main unions in co-management with the bosses. Many officers and managers of the FS (Ferrovie dello Stato, the state railway) are former trade unionists, mostly from the ‘official’ confederations CGIL, CISL and UIL. Six of the eight rail unions signed the last labour agreement, which unhinged regulations won by years of struggles by drivers, stretching the workday to 10 hours and extending it to part of the night shift.

In the local council elections in May the British National Party (BNP) won 32 new seats, bringing its national total to 48.

Its election material addressed those who felt "despondent, depressed, angry, ignored, abandoned, forgotten, ripped off, exploited, overtaxed, unrepresented". They said that the crisis in the NHS showed "the profit motive outweighing patient care", and denounced "private gain for public service".

After months of fighting, and twelve separate days out on strike, workers on Virgin Cross Country are facing the possibility of a painful defeat. RMT's attempt to stop cuts in Sunday pay rates has failed so far. Strikes were suspended at the end of March. Although Virgin appeared to relax its previous intransigence and agreed to talks, and in spite of the General Secretary's direct intervention, they have brought no real result. RMT is recommending members vote No in a referendum on a new offer, but the dispute looks to have little chance of revival.

A dispute over staff taxis at Waterloo on South West Trains escalated into a company wide dispute concerning managers driving trains. It began when management restricted access to taxis, disingenuously alleging ‘abuse’.

Whether it is Avantix, smart-card ticketing systems such as Oyster, or Manual Electronic Logging in signal boxes, technology continues to develop and to affect our life at work.

Management often target new technology into ticketing, even while they leave safety and operational systems in the 19th century. So passengers have contactless, stored-value, plastic tickets, while we still secure points with blocks of wood and metal clips!

Transport for London plans to privatise the Tube’s East London Line when it re-opens after its extension is built. Over a hundred stations, signals and drivers’ jobs will be transferred to the new private operator.

London Underground is trying to extend an element of Performance-Related Pay into operational grades. Other companies already use it and will look to extend it. So what’s wrong with it?

• Running a railway relies on teamwork - so whose performance is rewarded? Usually, we perform, managers get a bonus.
  
  

John McDonnell has announced that he will stand against Gordon Brown to replace Tony Blair as Labour Party leader.

This is very good news for railworkers, trade unionists, socialists and everyone else who is sick of Blair and Brown’s attacks on workers. McDonnell has an excellent record of fighting for our rights. He convenes RMT’s Parliamentary group and is prominent in the campaign for a Trade Union Freedom Bill.

No, you cheeky gits, I will not re-name this column ‘Two Shags’. Not only is it vulgarity worthy of the gutter, but my ghost writer is just not prepared to go there. It prompted a noise from the direction of the toilet bowl that sounded like ‘Blair’. Pronounced “Blai-ai-urr-uugh”.