Reports forwarded from the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation and supporters. Labournet do not know the source of some press reports.

Unions call for re-nationalisation of railways

Ananova
Sat 21st Oct

Trade unionists have called for the railways to be re-nationalised to prevent a repeat of the Hatfield crash. About 200 people staged the demonstration outside Railtrack’s head office, near Euston station, north London. The protest was planned before the Hatfield derailment, in which four people died.

It was originally organised under the banner “No More Paddingtons”, in reference to last year’s train crash in which 31 passengers were killed.

Assistant general secretary of the Railway, Maritime and Transport Workers Union (RMT) Bob Crow said: “After Hatfield and Paddington, people have lost total confidence in the railway network. We want to re-nationalise the railway network.

“We believe that Railtrack are running it purely on the basis of profit. There should be one company that is interested only in safety and serving the travelling public and any profit that is made goes back to the public,” he added.

Louise Christian, solicitor for the bereaved families of the Southall and Paddington rail crashes, said: “I have come to show solidarity from the bereaved and injured. This has been a very traumatic week for them because of Hatfield.

“It is like a dreadful nightmare in which something is happening again and again, like an awful groundhog day.

“It seems as if Railtrack has concealed from the public the information that there are 80 stretches of track deemed to be dangerous, just as they concealed Signal 109 had been passed at danger eight times before the Paddington crash.

“The bereaved and injured want to know why this information about unsafe track has been kept secret and we will be urging for change at the Paddington rail crash inquiry,” she added.

This is the section of an ‘es’ report relating to Ken/GLA responses to questions over the tube PPP. The longer report has stuff about pigeons and the police in it (for what it’s worth I don't agree with him on the latter, don't really have an opinion on the former!). Nonetheless, he seems to be sticking to his guns well - Matt Willgress

No surrender on Tube funding - Ken

Hugh Muir and Deepa Shah

Ken Livingstone has delivered a triple pledge to London’s beleaguered travellers that he will push through vital improvements to the Tube.

To wide applause, the Mayor told an audience at the first People’s Question Time that he wants drastic changes when he takes control of the Underground next year.

There will be new managers, the prospect of guards being reintroduced and no surrender in his battle against the Government’s public-private partnership (PPP) method for funding Tube improvements.

But while the Mayor was applauded, senior figures from the Greater London Assembly were heckled when they refused to endorse his stance against the PPP.

Among the 1,000-strong audience at Westminster Central Hall were Left-wingers from the Rail, Maritime and Transport union and other activists opposed to “Tube privatisation”.

Emphasising his determination to take a tough line on the Tube, Mr Livingstone said: “When I first started going to work the number of trains was much greater than it is now. The frequency was one every one or two minutes. The gaps have got longer and every time there has been investment things seem to have got worse. There will be a substantial clear out of the management.” He added that guards will be re-introduced to the Underground if funding can be found.

Mr Livingstone also promised to act against the PPP Tube funding scheme. “We are six or seven months away from an election with marginal seats all over London. This should be a live issue. I don’t want to, in the run up to an election, but if the Government proceeds and my legal advice is that is is challengeable, I will take the Government to court.”

Assembly chairman Trevor Phillips said Labour could not endorse the Mayor’s stance. While audience members made a direct link between the PPP and rail disasters such as the Hatfield crash, he said: “This is not privatisation. This issue isn’t as simple as we would like it to be. We can’t decide this when people are trying to shout others down.”

I think this backs up well the decision to campaign from the GLA against both Railtrack and Balfour Beatty and try and exaggerate the split between the 2. I certainly don’t agree with the idea some have expressed that we should just campaign for re-nationalisation of the railways/against Railtrack and not the individual companies seeking to take part in the PPP - Matt

Tube and Railtrack on safety ‘name and shame’ list

Dick Murray, Transport Editor

London Underground - as well as Railtrack and Balfour Beatty which are responsible for track maintenance at the site of the Hatfield train crash - were today put on the first “name and shame list” where safety crimes have been committed.

The public will be able to look at a special website to see if a company they travel with or work for has been convicted of safety failures and been fined.

The list includes large and small firms, local authorities, hospitals and universities which have breached the Health and Safety at Work Act. The Tube was handed down fines totalling £300,000 last July for breaching the Act, while Railtrack was fined £150,000 in March.

Balfour Beatty, employed by Railtrack to maintain the track at Hatfield, is also named after it was fined nearly £20,000 for failing to meet safety standards.

Both Railtrack and Balfour Beatty came under fire following last week’s crash in which four died and 34 were injured. A broken rail has been identified as the cause.

Other rail maintenance companies, sub-contracted to work on the railways, are also listed. These include GT Railway Maintenance Ltd, fined £18,000, and Jarvis Fast-line, £7,000.

The Health and Safety Executive published the list, which will be updated on a regular basis. It follows the publication of its first enforcement report.

Timothy Walker, HSE director general, said: “The convictions are there for everyone to see, including would-be customers, investors and insurers. I want this report to create pressure to improve on those who have failed in their responsibilities towards work-ers and the general public.”

Reprieve The Tube, Mr Prescott

John Prescott has never made any secret of his contempt for the private rail companies.

At the first Labour Party Conference following the 1997 election victory, he rounded on them after hundreds of delegates were delayed because of late running by Virgin trains.

On several occasions since then he has summoned rail chiefs to his office at the DETR for a dressing-down. Despite the occasional grimacing photocalls, he loathes them and the feeling is mutual.

In addition to these verbal attacks, Prescott appointed a tough new regulator, Tom Winsor, to sort out Railtrack and tried to give the old Office of Passenger Rail Franchising more teeth by renaming it the Strategic Rail Authority with additional powers. Really, though, his most profound wish would be to wipe them all off the face of the earth by renationalising the railways, a promise he made to the 1993 Labour conference.

However, he now reluctantly accepts that it is neither financially nor politically feasible. Even though there is growing public support for the idea, his boss would never countenance it and there are all kinds of legal and practical obstacles.

Although Prescott’s ranting has toned down somewhat recently, it was no surprise that in the aftermath of last week’s Hatfield train crash, the tap opened up again. He said: “I have always said that the fragmented, adversarial, blame-culture structure of the railways, which we inherited, encouraged different parts of the industry to pull in different directions, against the interests of passengers.”

But hold on a sec. If separating the track and infrastructure from the operation of the trains is such a bad idea for the railways, how come it is the best model for the Underground? The very basis of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) being put forward by Prescott for the Underground is the handing over of 30 year contracts to three “infracos” which will provide the track and infrastructure for the Tube.

The model is somewhat different from the situation on the national railways where Railtrack has a monopoly in providing track and infrastructure, while services are run by 25 train operators, all of which are privately owned firms. Under the PPP, the operator will be Transport for London, a public body under the aegis of the mayor, while the infracos will be private consortia who will be expected to invest massively to improve the state of the network in return for monthly payments from TfL.

However, the PPP is bound to suffer from many of the same problems as the national railways given the key point that the infrastructure is being separated from the operations in the same way. Let’s just go through Prescott’s wording:

“Fragmented” - indeed, as there will be four companies where there is now one and, moreover, there will be a clash of private and public sector cultures.

“Adversarial” - undoubtedly, since the relationship will be governed by a 30-year contract that will be open to legal challenge and which, over time, is bound to become outdated.

“Blame-culture” - you bet, as each party will blame the other when things go wrong, especially if there is a major accident.

The proponents of the PPP argue that the whole scheme is being drawn up on a different basis than the privatisation of the railways. It will all be co-operative they say; there will be reviews every 7.5 years that will ensure contracts are updated; and there will be a special arbiter to whom disputes will be taken.

The Industrial Society, which last month published a comprehensive and critical report on the PPP, was less than convinced. The report said that the arbiter was likely to be overworked as so many disputes would end up having to be resolved through arbitration and that the deal, as currently structured, seemed to favour the private infracos at the expense of the public sector TfL.

Yet, TfL is not party to the negotiations as the Government deliberately kept the mayor and his structure out of the process so that the scheme would be a fait accompli when the mayor was elected in May this year. Negotiations were supposed to have been completed by then but, in fact, they are now likely to go on until the end of next year.

Excluding TfL from the process is a recipe for endless disputes that will be a far cry from the promises of “co-operation” which are supposed to prevail in the new structure.

Moreover, there have been doubts expressed about the safety aspects of the scheme. In August, a leaked letter from Stanley Hart, the Health and Safety Executive’s principal inspector of railway, said he did not have “full confidence” in the way the system was being run following the split between operations and infrastructure brought about in preparation for the PPP sale. He expressed concern about who was ultimately going to be responsible for safety decisions in the new structure.

This is precisely the issue highlighted by the Hatfield tragedy where the decision not to impose a speed limit on a dodgy piece of track will be one of the key issues in the enquiry. Were Railtrack managers under pressure from the operators? Or did it get the right information and advice from its contractor, Balfour Beatty, which may also have been under pressure not to recommend line closures or speed restrictions.

Hatfield also showed that there are perverse incentives in the system to delay carrying out repairs because Railtrack faces compensation claims from operators if it has to close lines unexpectedly for emergency work. Railtrack also has to meet overall annual targets from the Rail Regulator to reduce delays.

Failing to do so leads to enormous fines and therefore a tendency has been built into the system to make do until the arrival of scheduled possessions (line closures) which are set out in Railtrack’s five-yearly track access agreements with the operators.

This kind of arrangement will also be built into the PPP. The infracos will be under financial incentives to provide a trouble-free environment and managers will be under pressure to allow services to continue running until there is a window of opportunity to effect repairs.

The Hatfield crash offered John Prescott a heaven-sent opportunity to get out of a deal which he does not really believe in. His statement unwittingly reveals that he would love to scrap the whole thing but now the issue of the PPP has become a virility test between him and Blair on the one hand and Livingstone on the other.

Meanwhile, Londoners who have to endure the daily torture of a Tube journey wait in vain for a solution that will begin to relieve them of their misery.

Campaign Against Tube Privatisation - http://CATP.listbot.com

Date: 22/10/00 10:29:02 GMT

From: labour.pakistan@usa.net (farooq tariq)

Railway Workers Under Attack in Pakistan

Farooq Sulehria

The Mugalpura Police of Lahore have registered a case against 10 labour leaders on the charges of breaching the peace, sedition and making provocative speeches against the military government. Rail Mazdoor Itehad (Rail workers unity, an alliance of all the main unions at Railway workshops) had organized a public meeting on 18th October, on the call of Pakistan Workers Confederation against price hike, unemployment, privatization and retrenchment of workers.

On 17th October, the rail management for negotiations called the four main railway labour leaders. As they arrived at the Divisional Superintendent Workshops, they found a large presence of police. At the negotiation table, mainly serving military officials, they were asked again and again to postpone the public meeting. They also promised to solve the problems of workers but not in writing. The negotiations went on till 11pm. Labour leaders insisted to take back the austerity measures, cancel the transfer orders of the two main rail workers leaders. No agreement was reached. The rail management made it absolute clear that they will not allow the public meeting.

The public meeting was to be held at shed build for workers rest during the intervals outside the main workshops. During the gate meetings early morning labour leaders made it clear to the workers that they will not compromise and if they are called for negotiation, they will go, but the public meeting must be organized with or without them.

All the main rest sheds were occupied by hundreds of policemen since morning of October 18th. It was clear to every one that the rail military management is all out to stop the public meeting. When the lunch break of an hour started workers came out in processions and after they saw the police at the sheds, they headed towards the railway workers union office. The canteen next to the office can accommodate over 300 workers for a meeting. The management thought that workers would organize the meeting at the canteen. But many militant workers refused to go the canteen and insisted that the meeting will take place at the scheduled area. The four railway workers leaders, Fazal Wahid, Saifu Rehman, Gul Deraz and Sadiq Baig had not yet reached the union office. It was believed that they are detained. So second layers of union leaders announced a picket line of the management office instead of the public meeting.

On hearing the news, that workers are marching towards the management office, the rail administration allowed the four leaders to go and to restrain them from doing this. As they arrived at the office, a new confidence was build.

Police stopped the marching workers to the sheds and threatened them with baton charges. This provoked the workers. Some of them said kill us but we will not leave this road. “Open fire if you want but we will have the public meeting” some of the elderly workers shouted.

On this, a wooden bench was brought on the main road and a public meeting started. Hundreds of police men were watching this bravery of the workers with shouting of “No to Price hike, Down with military government, Take back the victimization measures, restore the overtime, no to privatization” and so on. Some eight speakers including Choudry Gulzar Ahmed, chairman Pakistan Workers Confederation Punjab chapter, Farooq Tariq general secretary Labour Party Pakistan and Altaf Baluch of Mutehida Workers Federation spoke on the occasion. They vowed to fight back and continue to struggle for a workers democracy. The meeting went on for half an hour and incidentally or for any other reason, the one hour of lunch break went on and on until the meeting was over.

Police had to watch in desperation, as workers seemed determined to go for this historic meeting. It was after a long time that workers in Railway showed their revolutionary potential and a determined willingness to go for a militant mood.

The police first information report (FIR)

“Over 500/600 railway workshops under the leadership of Saif Rehman general secretary Railway Workers Union, Fazal Wahid general secretary CBA union, Sadiq Baig general secretary Mahnatkash union, Farooq Tariq general secretary Labour Party Pakistan, Altaf Baluch leader of Workers Confederation, Choudry Gulzar general secretary All Pakistan Trade Unions Federation, Gul Deraz Khan Rail Mazdoor Itehad, Haji Mohammed Alam Railway Power House Councilor, Mohammed Khalid Councilor Carriage shop, Mohammed Iqbal Councilor Carriage shop came on the Mughal Pura Road. They started a public meeting. They made speeches. Following slogans were raised against the government “long live workers unity, workers like brothers brothers, we are dying with hunger, stop price hike, The path of Struggle is our path, Atta (wheat floor) Sugar are going up, down with government”. They also raised slogans against the government. They warned the administration not to stop the workers to raise their voices. They also demanded to stop victimizations of the workers on political grounds.

Police warned them that there is a ban on political activities, but they went on with the meeting. So with the workers leaders,500/600 workers have violated the law. They have violated under section 148/149, 186/341, and 16 MPO (maintenance of public order). So police should take appropriate actions”.

The national media printed the news on 22nd October on the day when the Railway Federal Minister addressed a press conference boosting that railway is going into profit this year after the restructuring plan of the Rail department. The restructuring plan first attack was the workers whose several concessions have been withdrawn. A military discipline has been imposed on the workshops. Over time has been reduced. The number of concession passes for the workers have been reduced for travel by train. There has been no wage increase for the last four years. The union leaders have been transferred to for off places as a punishment for their union activity. In Rawalpindi, One workers leader Bashir Bottor has been terminated while 9 other been suspended from jobs for union activities.

Workers have been told by a letter not to contact the national media and not to issue press releases.

The workers leaders are in a process of going to the court for pre arrest bail as they all have gone underground. These latest attacks once again expose the real nature of the present regime, an anti workers military government going on all offence to fulfill the conditions of IMF and World Bank. One such condition for more aid is to bring the railway out of losses. So all the burden has been put on workers shoulders. While a large bureaucracy of Railway administration alongside the recent appointee of Military officials has been given a free hand to deal the workers.

The military government and railway administration cannot go very far on this road as they are buying an unprecedented heatedness of the workers and masses.

If you want more information Please contact: Labour.Pakistan@use.net

For more background information please visit
http://www.labourpakistan.org

Please send your protest letters to

1- Genral Manager Pakistan Railways
dirmispr@pakrailway.gov.pk

2- Federal Railway MInister Lt. Gen. (R)Javed Ashraf Tel: 92 51 9210322, 9210344
Fax: 92 51 9215740

3- Federal Labour Minister Mr. Umer Asgar Khan
envir@isb.compol.com
fax: 92 51 9202211, 92 51 9224890

4- Cheif Executive Genral Pervaiz Musharaf
CE@pak.gov.pk

Copies to labour.pakistan@usa.net

Dear everyone,

Thanks to Steve Myers who sent me this message below from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

Is there anyone out there who has links with our German brothers and sisters at Deutsche Bahn so we can make solidarity and send messages?

One Love

Graham Cee

Berlin: Railworkers Demonstrate Against Job Cuts

Kerstin Schwenn
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
20 Oct 2000
http://www.faz.com

BERLIN. Several hundred angry railway workers took to the streets on a gray Thursday, bound for the new Sony Center, the Berlin skyscraper of polished glass where the leaders of Deutsche Bahn made the job-killing decisions that fueled the protesters’ rage.

Waving union banners and blowing whistles, the workers vented their indignation at the railways’ newest plans to save money. The plans, announced early this week by the executive board, are designed to “consolidate capacities” by closing six vehicle maintenance plants next year. Several other factories are to be downsized. As a result, the railway says about 3,000 jobs, most of them in eastern Germany, may be cut. The workers’ union, however, fears that more than 5,000 are in danger.

The Deutsche Bahn says the cuts will be carried out in a “socially acceptable” way. But the signs that the workers carried expressed doubts about that pledge and issued a plea to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder: “Gerhard, call back your hangman!”

Deutsche Bahn is led by Hartmut Mehdorn, who became head of the railway just under a year ago. His task is to push forward the plan his two predecessors Heinz Dürr and Johannes Ludewig had hesitatingly begun: to restructure the company within 10 years after the railway reform of 1994, to make it profitable and to end its previous dependence on state subsidies, except for infrastructure investments in the rails.

But the company is having difficulties completing this trip from being a government agency to becoming an enterprise attractive to financial markets. Six years into the reform, the start of the journey is still closer than the destination.

Mr. Mehdorn is determined to fulfill his task and expresses confidence that he will succeed. He is experienced, having served as a manager at Airbus and a printing press manufacturing company. But he cannot reinvent the rails, so he began by taking inventory. He wants to uncover the causes of the railway’s malaise. In the last six years, DM90 billion ($39 billion) were invested in the company, staff cuts were carried out, and productivity was increased. But sales have stagnated at DM30 billion a year. Last year, the profit to which it had grown accustomed was eaten up by operating costs.

Cuts in Rail Jobs

The search for weak points in the run-down rail network, in the routing and frequency of passenger and freight trains, in income structures and in work schedules has made the 240,000 railway workers nervous. They know that unpleasant consequences are unavoidable. The most that the constant pressure from worker representatives and unions can accomplish is to soften a hard blow. Mathematically,70,000 jobs must be eliminated if the railway is to achieve its goal of saving DM3.6 billion a year in personnel costs.

Mr. Mehdorn does not want to be tied to the various political functions foreseen for the railway, but to face the “realities of the market.” He defends the closure of the maintenance plants, arguing that “under the given conditions, they are no longer justifiable.” The railway suffers from overcapacity, partially as a result of the fusion of the West and East German rail systems. The demand for maintenance services has fallen drastically because many companies have bought new cars.

Mr. Mehdorn did not originate the idea of rapidly shedding Deutsche Bahn’s responsibility for the maintenance plants. The railway says that, in the last two years, it has negotiated fruitlessly with “several hundred potential investors” about selling these operations, which are not part of the core of its business.