Bring On The New Year!

Posted in Tubeworker's blog on ,

2009 will be a big year for London Underground workers. We could take huge steps forward if we successfully fight the battles ahead.

The big thing this year will be the battle over pay in the five companies included in the RMT pay claim: LU, TfL, Alstom, Metronet and EDF Powerlink. Management are not negotiating properly so far and are talking of a five-year deal. We need to be prepared to fight to the bitter end over pay this year, as management will refuse our pay rise and try to silence us until after 2012. By building unity now across companies and grades, importantly between drivers and station staff, we will be ready to take on management sooner rather than later, with a strategy confident of winning. A good campaign and a victory will give us confidence to see off management’s dodgy plans in the run-up to 2012.

Other battles include threats of redundancies on TfL and TubeLines, the uncertainties of the Metronet transfer to LUL and the living wage to win for all cleaners. We face these challenges in a climate of deepening recession. But if the unions fight effectively, it will debunk the management myth that wage and job cuts are inevitable in times like these. There is no such thing as an inevitable job cut if we are prepared to fight it. And we have every reason to fight: the same management that make our lives hell on a daily basis do not suddenly become our friends in a recession and we do not have to sacrifice our jobs to save theirs.

Steve Hedley, elected to the position of Regional Organiser for RMT’s London Transport Region, will take office in January. As the Regional Organiser looks after negotiations and industrial strategy in all companies across the Underground, we will all feel the benefit of his election. It will give us a leadership on fights like pay that will take a stand and not settle shorts of our interests. The fact that the majority of voting RMT members opted for Steve shows that they want a democratic, fighting union that unites all grades.

Getting the right people elected to union posts is only part of the story, as we also need strong rank-and-file organisation, and we need the right policies and the confidence to fight for them. But with Steve’s election, we have a new impetus to build up the union’s organisation, encouraging all members to get involved, so RMT’s forces are strong on the ground. We can build a strategy for this year and up to 2012, so we can start taking a direction, rather than bouncing around from one dispute to the next. A determined campaign against management based on the most democratic methods of organising should focus people’s minds away from apolitical in-fighting amongst some union activists that has hindered us recently. Bring on the New Year!

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