On the Tube

By New Worker correspondent

Britain’s bosses and unions are increasingly at war over a possible return to work. It also seems that a considerable number of the public are eager to get their teeth into health-giving McDonald’s burgers once again. Some bosses, such as the notorious Sports Direct, were even trying to force workers furloughed at taxpayers’ expense to work one day a week in the warehouses.

      The trinity of rail unions, ASLEF, RMT and TSSA, have denounced plans to run more trains in a letter to the Prime Minister and leaders of the devolved assemblies. The unions point out that they have worked during the crisis to ensure key workers are able to get to work and to move essential medical and food supplies. They demand that company profits must not come before people’s lives however, and the lockdown should not be lifted until it is safe to do so.

In particular, they warn “that attempts by operators to increase service levels sends out a mixed message that it is okay to travel by train – despite official advice suggesting otherwise” will lead “to the public flouting the rules on travel and work”. They also note that there is no agreement on actually how services can be increased whilst protecting workers and passengers, warning: “We will not accept new working patterns that put the lives of railway workers and passengers at risk.”

A leaked report from Transport for London (TfL) shows that if social distancing were to be imposed on the London Underground system it could only carry 15 per cent of its capacity. This means that even with a 100 per cent service, only 50,000 passengers could board every 15 minutes, compared with 325,000 normally boarding every 15 minutes at rush hour peak prior to lockdown. At present, the reduced service can carry 30,000 passengers boarding every quarter of an hour.

Unsurprisingly, TfL said: “Whatever happens over the coming weeks and months, everyone who can work from home must continue to do so for some time yet. Our intention is to progressively build up service levels, but it is clear life simply won’t be returning to what it was before.”

Obviously this will apply not just to the London tube but to buses and trains across the country, meaning that few people will be able to travel any distance to work. RMT’s General Secretary Mick Cash commented: “The report leaked this morning to the BBC exposing the impact on passenger numbers of maintaining Government social distancing guidelines on the tube is a wake-up call to all those tub-thumping for a jacking up of transport services from May 18th without properly assessing the consequences.”

Also on the London tube, cleaners employed by cleaning contractor ABM are being treated as second-class citizens by being denied staff travel cards that allow travel across the TfL network despite other tube workers receiving this benefit, according to their union, RMT. It also points out that furloughed cleaners are also only receiving 80 per cent of their pay whilst other Tube staff are receiving 100 per cent.

     In addition to refusing to give the cleaners staff travel cards, TfL refers to them as “non-core”. After hearing the Mayor of London praise the cleaners to the sky, RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said: “The hypocrisy towards tube cleaners is breath-taking. On the one hand they are told by the Mayor and others they are doing an amazing job and they’re vital to the fight against coronavirus, then in the same breath they’re told you can’t have all the same basic conditions of employment as other tube staff, not even free tube travel”...

 ...and On the Buses

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has said he wants more buses running, but Unite the Union demands that should not be before certain conditions such as risk assessments are undertaken and fully applied and social distancing measures to protect drivers are preserved. In particular, Unite demands that drivers’ protective screens are sealed, seats around the driver cordoned off and non-cash payments implemented. Restrictions on overloading will need to be introduced.

Unite assistant general secretary Diana Holland said: “The increase in services must be underpinned by safety and maintaining the confidence of bus workers and passengers at all times. Unite is in regular discussions with the government on these issues.

“It must also be recognised that a considerable number of drivers cannot currently work and that this should not result in the remaining drivers being required to undertake excessive hours, which risk their health and safety.”

Unite also represents the taxi trade, so she added that: “The government should remember and fully utilise taxis in the return to work. Purpose-built hackney carriages are designed for social distancing and they should play a full role in helping workers to return to work.”

One branch of London buses where Unite unsuccessfully demanded suspension of services after the death of a driver is the Dial-a-Ride service for elderly and disabled residents who have mobility issues and who cannot otherwise use public transport. This call was made in the aftermath of the death of a driver, Patrick David, who died after 17 years service.

At present, such buses carry only one passenger per vehicle at any one time and drivers are now being provided with sufficient PPE [personal protective equipment] for each customer. But as drivers also help passengers onto vehicles, fasten them in, and help them in and out of their home, it is impossible for social distancing to be achieved at all times.

In place of the service, Unite is calling on TfL to ensure that the elderly and disabled service users are supported through the many community initiatives that deliver food and medicines to vulnerable people during this crisis.

Speaking of the suspension demand, Unite regional officer Simon McCartney said: “This was a very difficult call for our members to make as many of them have dedicated their lives to working for Dial-a-Ride and they appreciate the service is a lifeline for many of its users.

“Once the service is suspended, Unite is committed to working with TfL to introduce measures to get it up and operating again as quickly as possible.”

Rail unions fight for safety

by Daphne Liddle 

TRAVEL in London was brought to a virtual halt last Monday during a very successful strike action by London Underground staff in the RMT and TSSA unions, demanding the restoration of safe levels of staffing.

The problems have arisen over the last year after cuts to the Transport for London (TfL) budget made by former Chancellor George Osborne and cuts to staffing made by former London Mayor Boris Johnson.

More than 800 jobs have gone, ticket offices have been closed and control rooms at many stations often go unstaffed. This seriously endangered staff and passengers on at least two occasions: one case of dangerous overcrowding at Canning Town station and another at North Greenwich where a terrorist bomb was found, which fortunately failed to detonate. In both cases there was no one in the station control rooms to trigger emergency incident plans and it was only by luck that there were no mass casualties.

There has been an increase in the numbers of doors closing, trapping passengers’ hands, coats and bags leading to passengers being dragged along platforms because there are fewer platform staff and CCTV monitoring cameras have also been cut to save money.

Staff are concerned that before long there will be a major catastrophe. The new Labour Mayor, Sadiq Khan, has promised to look at re-opening some ticket offices and restoring 200 jobs, but the unions say this is nowhere near enough.

The strike led to chaos as people tried to get to work by other means — buses were packed and Clapham Junction rail station had to be closed because of dangerous overcrowding.There were dozens of picket lines across the capital and public support for the strike was high, despite a barrage of attacks on the unions from the media. Tory MPs called again for public sector strikes to be banned.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes was out visiting picket lines on Monday from 5am and said that the strike was solid. Just 10 of 270 stations were open.

He said: “I pay tribute to my members whose commitment to public service is so strong they are now prepared to forego a day’s pay today and strike if that’s what it takes to warn the public that the Tube is no longer being as safely run as it was this time last year.

“The strength of feeling on this issue is reflected in the solidity of the strike with just a few trains are running at the edges of the system.

“London Underground may tell you today that they are offering 600 jobs this year, but the Tube sheds 400 jobs per year through natural wastage. In reality the offer is just 200 and whilst it’s a step in the right direction 200 jobs cannot plug the gaping hole that’s been left in the system by devastating Tory attacks on TfL’s budget.”

The RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “Our members are out in force across London Underground this morning in the fight for jobs and safety. The strike action is being solidly supported on every line, at every station and on picket lines right across the Tube network.

“This action has been forced on us by savage cuts to jobs that have reduced London Underground to an under-staffed death trap at a time of heightened security and safety alert.

“RMT members will not stand idly by while they see day in and day out the safety regime on the tube being slashed to ribbons. Even senior Tube bosses have admitted that we are absolutely correct in our assessment of the risks that are being taken as the impact of the 900 station job cuts hits home.

“The solution is in the hands of the Mayor and his officials. They need to come up with serious and urgent plans designed to address the core issues at the heart of this dispute and a schedule for staffing back up on the stations to a level our reps believe is safe and sustainable.”

Meanwhile the battle to preserve the role of guards on trains at Southern Rail continues — also an issue of safety for passengers and rail staff.

The day after TfL station staff went on strike across London’s tube network, Southern Rail services were cancelled on Tuesday, as well as on Wednesday and Friday, in the latest strikes on the commuter rail network.

In this instance the drivers’ union ASLEF was involved. These are the first walkouts of the new year in a long-running dispute at Southern over whether trains should operate without guards, leaving drivers to operate train doors.

Leaves on the Piccadilly line

THE RMT transport union has called for the complete closure of the Piccadilly London Underground line until a problem with the wheels on the ageing rolling stock has been sorted.

Accumulations of fallen leaves on the track caught under the wheels during braking cause serious damage (known as “flatting”) to the wheels, resulting in a potential safety problem.

The union also says that a summit meeting needs to be called by the Mayor and London's transport commissioner, with an action plan drawn up and then properly implemented.

RMT also says that the night tube due to come in on the 16^th December on the Piccadilly Line has to be postponed to protect passenger and staff safety.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "The entire Piccadilly line fleet of trains has got a major engineering problem which has finally boiled over.

“It's nothing new and it is down to pressure on services and sheer managerial incompetence. The attempt to shift the blame onto drivers and fleet engineers is disgraceful. Those workers, along with the station staff, have slogged their guts out to keep passengers safe and trains moving.

"Basically the problem is flatted wheels, which mean the train has to come off the road for a chunk of time to have the wheel checked and lathed back to safe tolerances. LU [London Underground] fleet engineers have worked under impossible management pressure to keep services running.

"But now the sheer danger of massive delays and overcrowding means that the service on the Piccadilly Line is inherently unsafe and will get worse under Night Tube.

"Our members are asking why will it be another 10 years before these 43-year-old trains are fully replaced when refurbishment clearly isn't working. It is also becoming clear that the wheels themselves are at fault and they've only recently been replaced. The contract for that job needs to be forensically examined.

"These issues have now all come together in a cumulative effect and are the reason why sections of the line were closed on Friday.

"RMT has been told the problem could take weeks to fix properly. Trying to do it on the hoof with our members taking the rap is no way to proceed. That's why consideration has to be given to the service being suspended until the trains are repaired and signed off as safe.

"We will have health and safety reps out and about from this morning advising our members and we expect an urgent response from the Mayor and his officials which we have set out today."

CORBYN JOINS RAIL UNION PROTEST

Out at Paddington

 by New Worker

 correspondent

RAIL union activists were out in force at major stations throughout the country early on Monday morning protesting as the latest rise in rail fares came into effect.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn joined the Aslef protesters at Kings Cross in London while senior RMT officers Alex Gordon and Eddie Dempsey were out at Paddington.

A recent survey has shown that rail travellers in Britain pay around six times as much for travel as their counterparts in most of Europe.

Passengers in Britain are currently spending 13 per cent of their wages on travel while Italian commuters pay two per cent, Spanish pay three per cent, and Germans pay four per cent. At the same time, a significant part of the British rail system is owned by the publicly owned railways of Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and China.

Commuters are now paying 25 per cent more on average for their season tickets since David Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010. Workers’ transport costs have risen three times faster than wages have in the last five years.

Corbyn condemned the outrageous fare rises and the profits being extorted by foreign-owned rail companies. He said: “It seems the Tories have no objections to public ownership so long as the British public don’t get the benefit.

“It is a national disgrace that higher fares are squeezed out of Britain’s passengers every year so that dividends can be repatriated to Berlin, Paris or Amsterdam to subsidise other countries’ railways, or paid to private shareholders in Britain.”

And he reiterated his promised that renationalising Britain’s railways would be one of the first acts of a Labour government in 2020.

Corbyn added: “Labour has nothing against the public ownership of railways in other countries, far from it. But we want our own railways to be owned by the British people.

“Railways are part of the new green economy of the future. That’s why Labour is now pledged to bring our railways into democratic public ownership at home.

“A modern, publicly owned People’s Railway is central to our plans to rebalance economic growth, not just North-South but right across the country.

“So one of the first acts of the next Labour Government in 2020 will be to bring franchises into public ownership as soon as possible and start to create a properly integrated railway system with affordable fares – in the interests both passengers and taxpayers.”

Also present at Kings Cross were Mick Whelan, ASLEF’s general secretary and Shadow Transport Secretary Lilian Greenwood as well as Mick Cash of the RMT and Manuel Cortes of the TSSA.

According to a recent YouGov poll 62 per cent of people in Britain agree that public ownership of the railways should be reconsidered.

Their main question is: if British railways are so profitable for foreign states and private corporations, why should Britain not reap the benefits for itself? Or put another way, why shouldn’t profits be invested in improving infrastructure and reducing travel costs for British travellers rather than going into someone else’s pockets?

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell also insists that the Labour Party is now “fully behind bringing the railways back into public ownership”.

This policy was outlined at the 2015 Labour conference, when the party promised to “return private rail franchises into public ownership when they come to an end”.

This would mean around a third could be brought back into public ownership by 2025 if Corbyn wins the 2020 general election. The five franchises due to expire between 2020 and 2025 are Thameslink, Southern, and Great Northern, Chiltern Railways, East Coast, Transpennine Express, and Northern.