People before profit – nationalise the railways

RMT Members in Scotland took part in a union backed national campaign day on Tuesday August 14th under the Action For Rail banner, The campaign is against massive fare rises, staff cuts and station closures which are the key recommendations of the Transport Scotland Rail 2014 Consultation document, released earlier this year.

Passengers in Scotland face a 4.2% increase on regulated fares from January 2013 – with the Train Operating Companies’s allowed to increase the unregulated fares by an additional 5% – a whopping 9.2% increase for commuters in some areas of Scotland.

Instead of moving towards the far cheaper option of renationalising the railways, the Scottish Government have proposed to carve up the current ScotRail franchise at its renewal in 2014, allowing more profiteering from the spivs and speculators that bleed our industry dry today.

With no promise of this increase being invested back into the industry, it is quite clear were the interests of the Scottish Government lie – in the name of profit and lining the pockets of the industries shareholders with gold.. The transport minister has promised us more privatisation and fragmentation in 2014 and despite Network Rails promise of more investment into the industry in is quite clear that the façade of rail privatisation is set to continue way into the future.

RMT and the other rail unions supported by the TUC have launched a high profile campaign “Action for Rail – People before profit” – and will be campaigning under this banner showing opposition to Transport Scotland’s Rail 2014 recommendations And the McNulty Report.