Unions should resist rail and fuel price rises with civil disobedience

Millions of people who commute to work are a just a few weeks away from a massive cut in incomes that will intensify the dramatic fall in living standards that the recession and austerity measures have already created.

As people struggle back to work after the Christmas holidays, they will be hit by a double whammy of steep rail fare increases and the bills for electricity and gas that in some cases will show rises of nearly 11%.

This amounts to a huge transfer of wealth to the train operators and energy companies like E.On which yesterday announced increases averaging 8.7%. These will naturally impact harder on poorer households, adding to five million already in fuel poverty.

So too will the rail fare rises. Passengers on many routes face fare increases of up to 10% next month. Season tickets and peak fares are regulated and will rise by an average 4.2%.

Many commuters pay huge amounts already. For example, an annual season ticket from St Albans to London is around £3,000. That will go up by over £120 in January.

Off-peak and anytime tickets in England and Wales are set to soar, according to the watchdog Passenger Focus because they are not regulated. An anytime return from London to Norwich will now be 9.2% dearer at £107.70. A day return from Holyhead-Llandudno will be 6.5% more expensive.

The ConDem coalition is pushing ahead with plans to reduce the £3 billion plus subsidy to the rail industry, a process that began under New Labour. That will result in ticket office closures and other “efficiency” savings.

The rail unions have launched a campaign to bring the railways back into public ownership. Today they were holding protests in Swansea and Cardiff. More actions are planned before Christmas.

They handed out Christmas cards with a "seasonal message" from the train companies, which promised commuters will have a 2013 "packed full of cancelled trains, staff cuts and ticket office closures" while the train companies are "making huge profits".

Rob Jenks, of transport and travel union TSSA, said: "We want to point out the dramatic rise in rail fares, a 30% increase in rail fares, compared to the average increase in people's wages of 11.9%.  So you can see there's a huge gap between what people can afford to pay and what people are having to pay.

"It's about fares, it's also about all the cuts the industry is facing as the government tries to allegedly balance the books but without taking the opportunity to actually look at what public ownership would bring and all the savings that would make by cutting out profit and various other things."

The Action for Rail campaign says that since privatisation, more than £11 billion of public funds has been “misspent” on debt write-offs, dividend payments to private investors,  and higher interest payments in order to keep Network Rail’s debts off the government balance sheet.

“At the same time, privatisation has failed to deliver on its promises. Genuine private investment makes an insignificant contribution to the railways, representing about one per cent of the total money that goes into the railway each year.  Our fares are among the highest in Europe, many of our services are overcrowded and rely on obsolete rolling stock.”

Obviously, there is no way the Coalition is going to contemplate public ownership as an option. And nor is Labour. Shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle has only pledged to make sure that the limit on fare rises is applied more strictly. That’s really worth waiting for!

The savage reduction in living standards that will greet millions on January 1 is unprecedented. Rail unions ought to step up their action. RMT general secretary Bob Crow has in the past talked of a campaign of civil disobedience to fight the government. There couldn’t be a better time to put his words into action than right now.

Paul Feldman

Communications editor

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