‘Don’t privatise Metro’
Sep 23 2008 by Peter Montellier, The Journal
UNION leaders are urging Metro passengers to lobby their MPs to demand the rail system stays public.
Under plans for a Metro revamp, private operators are being invited to bid to run trains and manage station staff as a condition of £300m of Government cash handed out in the second stage of a £600m modernisation scheme.
Metro operators Nexus insist the overall running of the system will remain in the public sector. But unions say the move will fragment the Metro and is tantamount to privatisation.
Officials from unions Unite, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) have stepped up their battle against the plans in a new move to get passengers on board.
Representatives were on the Metro yesterday handing out leaflets to users to “Keep Tyne and Wear Metro Public”.
Stan Herschel, RMT regional organiser, said yesterday: “We still don’t believe it’s too late for everyone to sit round the table to come to some common ground and stop this madness.
“The response from passengers has been good. People are taking the time to read what we are saying and they have been amazed and staggered. Comments have included ‘is nothing sacred?’ and ‘what’s wrong with keeping it the way it is?’
Unions say the Metro, the country’s last fully integrated and publicly-owned railway, is “officially Britain’s most punctual railway”, with 95.57% of its trains running on time. “But all that is under threat”, they say in their campaign document.
“Bitter experience tells us that privatisation and fragmentation will undermine safety, services, jobs and pensions, as privateers sweat the assets, cut corners and cut staff,” it adds.
“The planned £300m upgrade of the Metro is welcome, but privatising it is pointless because there is not even any pretence that the private sector will provide any extra investment – every penny will come from the public.”
The leafleting move comes after a poll last week showed most people were against handing over the running of Metro trains to a private operator.
A sample of 549 people in the North East were questioned in the poll, carried out for the union-led Keep Metro Public campaign by ICM Omnibus.
Around 60% said the Metro should be run by a publicly-owned organisation and only 22% favoured a private operator. Another 10% said it didn’t matter and 7% didn’t know. It also follows a protest by unions outside St James’s Park earlier this month, where companies were invited to a meeting to discuss the network’s modernisation plans.
But yesterday a Nexus spokesman said: “No matter what the RMT say or do, we are not privatising Metro.”
The unions are urging passengers to contact their councillors to help keep the Metro in the public sector. Users are also being urged to ask their MP to sign an Early Day Motion lodged by Newcastle MP Jim Cousins which calls for the Government to keep the Metro in the public sector.
