by a Shovel Hand THERE IS no doubt that the experience of two years plus of privatisation has opened the eyes of most of our members to the realities of the situation.
There is almost universal condemnation of blatant favouritism in the form of so-called "suitability", asset-stripping activities, victimisation and harassment of elected union representatives and rank and file members, and constant erosion and attacks on rents at work, transport and allowances generally.
The restructuring plans of the privatised rail maintenance companies are little more than a sick joke. All documents have presented to RMT a farrago of assaults on sociable working hours, hard-won allowances and transport to work facilities and financial losses in take home pay to the tune of a hundred pounds plus. So our members are faced with a prospect of losing out in every area that makes life worthwhile or at least bearable and getting a de facto pay cut on top, just to rub insult into injury. RMT's counter-proposals, known as "The Blue Book", seek to put the skids under such proposals.
Our members are sick of the constant refrain of threats to pull out and lose contracts as if they themselves would be to blame if this should come about. Outside agency labour is already being used to undermine our members. The "Yes" vote will to a great extent put the TUC and Labour leadership under the spotlight, not least because there is a great deal There is a of public sympathy for workers in conflict with privatisation cowboys. A direct con- with privatisation frontation is in the cowboys offing with the privatised companies and a consequent indirect one with New Labour generally. It will be the first national rail stoppage since the signalworkers humiliated the Tories in 1994 and is thus of great significance. All socialists, trade unionists, trades councils and those sympathetic to us must organise and rally to us in the current dispute. Additionally, from the recent development of left wing great deal of advances within public sympathy for railway trade workers in conflict unionism (eg the victory of Dave Rix of the SLP in ASLEF) there is a prospect of forming a strong industrial union uniting all grades of railworkers for the first time ever in history, thus ending the endemic sectionalism that has hamstrung our movements for so long.