Transport workers break the mantra

At last – a group of workers have broken through the mantra of There Is No Alternative, pumped out by the government and the mass media.

Around 10,000 trade unionists belonging to the Rail Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) and the Transport and Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) are defying the Lib-Con coalition’s mantra that civilisation as we know it requires massive cuts in public services, including public transport. They faced down a propaganda barrage by London Mayor Boris Johnson as they walked out yesterday on their 24-hour strike action.

Their action is in protest against Transport for London’s 800 job losses planned amongst station and platform staff to meet the spending cuts sought by the Department of Transport. Both unions say that cutting ticket office staff levels will endanger passenger safety.

Maintenance staff stopped work at 5pm on Monday, followed by drivers, signallers and station staff later in the evening. In a separate dispute maintenance staff employed by Alstom-Metro on the Jubilee and Northern Line held a 24-hour strike from Sunday evening. More stoppages are planned for October and November.

The strikes shut down large sections of London Underground, despite efforts by management to recruit skeleton staff. The RMT pointed to a London Underground circular which appealed for volunteers, including workers without the required Operational Licenses or with lapsed licenses in clear safety breaches.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said that London Underground were prepared to cut any and all corners in order “to bulldoze through their lethal cocktail of job and safety cuts. Sending out a few volunteers without the necessary Operational Licences and training to try and run a handful of trains is a disaster waiting to happen.”

The union says that such attempts to undermine the strike action “go to the very heart of the dispute which is all about London Underground hacking back staffing levels and cutting corners on safety in a dash to slash costs, regardless of the implications for the travelling public.”

“Instead of playing fast and loose with safety it is about time that the Mayor and his officials took the issues as the heart of this dispute seriously, removed the threat of these savage cuts from above our members heads and cleared the way for meaningful talks aimed at protecting safety and safe staffing levels,” Crow insisted.

The strike has won considerable public backing. A poll conducted by LBC radio found that 73% of respondents backed the unions with only 26% supporting the employers at Transport for London. A separate poll conducted by YouGov showed that 60% of those surveyed believed that transport workers should have the right to strike, as opposed to 31% who disagreed. Fellow rail workers in the Zimbabwe Amalgamated Railway Workers Union (ZARU) have sent a message of support.

Keen to keep his job as Mayor of London, Johnson claims to oppose the 25% to 40% cuts in transport spending he says are demanded by the Coalition Treasury. Writing in yesterday’s Evening Standard, Johnson said that “cuts of that order would be disastrous for London transport network”. He wants the Crossrail project to continue - but clearly at the expense of London Underground staff.

Hiding behind the clear need to modernise and improve the Underground system the Mayor has accused the RMT of “cynicism” and “Luddism”. The union, Johnson claims, is staging a “trumped up and politically motivated attempt to have a pop at the Coalition government”.

But as TSSA leader Gerry Doherty, whose members voted 72.6 per cent in favour of strike action, says: "These cuts are being driven by the Government as much as by Boris so our battle is with Downing Street as much as TfL.”

Developing a modern and ecologically sound transport system is impossible over the backs of those who work in it. It requires not only the end of the Lib-Con coalition but fundamental economic and social change as outlined in A World to Win’s Manifesto of Revolutionary Solutions.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win Secretary

New Labour's tame copper

Sir Ian Blair, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, is New Labour’s favourite copper. Ministers can always rely on him to back the government when others are reluctant to do so. In fact, when it comes to plans to extend pre-trial detention to 42 days, Blair is about the only supporter of substance that they can wheel out.

Blair’s arguments in favour of what amounts to internment are absolutely in line with home secretary Jacqui Smith’s view that it is better to have new powers just in case you might need them one day. Yesterday, Blair told MPs examining the legislation that suspects might "suddenly emerge from left field" and have to be arrested at a very early stage, leaving officers with “huge amounts of investigative work”. Then he claimed: “We have reached a point where at 28 days we feel sooner or later - and maybe sooner - something is going to happen to make that insufficient."

On that basis, the state might as well assume greater and greater general powers over ordinary citizens in all areas on the grounds that, well, the state might just need them one day. Of course, that is exactly what New Labour has been doing over the last decade. Ministers have consistently disregarded basic human rights laws and the rule of law to introduce draconian powers, starting well before the 9/11 attacks and the so-called “war on terror”. As a result, we now live under a fully-fledged surveillance state, where the citizen is secretly monitored in a variety of ways.

Blair’s approach to 42 days is the same “pre-emptive” mentality that lies behind actions ranging from the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the Met chief’s namesake to the execution by his officers of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005. Iraq could have had “weapons of mass destruction” – so let’s invade and wreck the country to make sure. Pity we couldn’t find any, says the government, but it is better to be safe than sorry. The same goes for the Brazilian electrician. He could have been a terrorist. The fact that he wasn’t makes him an unfortunate victim of the “war on terror”. Thanks to New Labour’s control of the Metropolitan Police Authority, no one – least of all Sir Ian Blair – is held accountable for their actions on that day. He is truly the government's man at Scotland Yard.

There are serious voices within the state opposed to extending the detention period from 28 days to 42 days (it was only 48 hours in 1997). These include Sir Ken Macdonald, the director of public prosecutions. The DPP told MPs yesterday: "For our part as prosecutors, we don't perceive any need for the period of 28 days to be increased. Our experience has been that we have managed comfortably within 28 days. We have therefore not asked for an increase in 28 days. It is possible to set up all sort of hypotheses ... Anything is possible - the question is whether it's remotely likely." And Britain’s most senior Asian policeman, assistant Metropolitan Police commissioner Tarique Ghaffur says increasing the limit will be “counter-productive”.

Whether such opposition will inspire enough New Labour MPs to vote against the proposal and defeat the government remains to be seen. Whether Blair remains in his post is also a matter for debate. That entirely depends on the outcome of the May 1 elections for mayor of London. Tory challenger Boris Johnson and Liberal Democrat (and former policeman) Brian Paddick wants him removed. Mayor Ken Livingstone running on the New Labour ticket, wants Blair to stay on. Who would have thought it?

Paul Feldman
AWTW communications editor