The TUI Transport of WFTU adresses it’s full support to the tubeworkers on strike on the London Underground, to the railwayworkers of First Great Western and Southern Rail.
The TUI Transport of WFTU particularly salutes all the members of the Rail Maritime Trade Union in their struggle to defend jobs, to keep the guard on the train, in their legitimate fight aimed at ensuring acceptable working and wage conditions for all workers who will deliver the 24H service on the London Underground.
Since the privatisation of British Rail, the railways have become a symbol of the disastrous consequences of privatising public services. The World Federation of Trade Unions has organised several exchanges and visits of British railwayworkers from the RMT to other countries in Europe (more recently so in France and Portugal) aimed at explaining and spreading the word to railwayworkers of as many countries as possible about the consequences of this privatisation and what awaits them if they don’t fight back !
It was said that private enterprise would somehow deliver greater efficiency, better services, lower fares, and on top of that, even the massive investment needed on the railway ! But with one disaster and catastrophy after another, continously rising fares, deteriorating services, that claim has been widely exposed for what it is : another shameless lie !
The recent strikes that have been held and organised by the RMT across different railway companies, the recent upturn in industrial action in the railway and London Underground, and also Network Rail, has proven our class ennemy wrong in many aspects. Many of them thought that the perspective of a rail strike was a thing of the past in Great Britain, even more so at a national scale.
The workers on strike deserve the overwhelming support of all workers, in Britain and abroad.
The TUI Transport of WFTU hopes that the industrial action undertaken recently in the british railway and London underground, amidst declared government attacks on the right to strike of british workers, will enbolden the rest of the working class that has had enough of the greediness and parasitism of the shareholders who will stop at nothing in their never-ending quest for more profits.
