We´ve been highlighting the Metronet fiasco by leafleting passengers at many stations. We´ve also attended joint RMT/TSSA lobbies about Metronet at Downing St, the Department if Transport and the TUC.
In July 2007, Metronet , the consortium responsible for two-thirds of maintenance and renewals on London Underground collapsed, £2 billion in debt, having siphoned off some £127.3 million of public money in its first 3 years as profit for its shareholders. It´s now in administration. Metronet had systematically reduced the engineering skill and safety standards it had inherited. Instead of announcing the arrest of the Metronet bosses, Administrators Ernst & Young announced enormous "confidential" pay offs for the five fattest cats, said to total many hundreds of millions of pounds! Both TSSA and RMT denounced these "outrageous" rewards.
Now Metronet will come back under TfL control. But TfL says that buying back Metronet means they will have to axe their planned cooling system for sweltering summer on the Tube and plans to install lifts to make the Tube more accessible for disabled passengers will also be drastically delayed!
CATP says passengers should not have to pay for Gordon Brown´s PPP fiasco!
Since the fragmentation of London Underground, under Gordon Brown´s public-private partnership (PPP), we´ve witnessed 6 derailments (the most recent between Mile End and Bethnal Green in July this year). Fragmentation of our tube into the hands of private companies clearly threatens passengers´ safety, so the other large private consortium,Tube Lines, should also be brought back into public ownership. But the need to stop privatisation doesn’t end there.
The same logic (against private profit and for public ownership) should also apply to the East London Line (Dalston Junction,New Cross). It closes on 22nd December for major engineering works and extension : through massive public subsidy. But, unfortunately, the Mayor and Government have decided that it will re open in 2010 as London Underground´s first fully privatised passenger line. Why is the Mayor incapable of applying the same logic to the East London Line as he has to Metronet? If the public pays, then it should own and control this much needed new tube line. For safety´s sake it needs to be retained within London Underground, not for the enrichment of private shareholders. Write to express your concerns to K. Livingstone, Mayor of London, City Hall, Queen´s Walk, London SE1 2AA. We must not forget that other aspects of Tube Privatisation. Many infrastructure workers are employed by cowboy contractors and the Londoners who clean the Underground are employed and exploited by multinational ´cleaning´ outfits.
Meanwhile, London Underground had previously announced it was planning the outright closure of 39 ticket offices and the drastic reduction in the opening hours of nearly all the rest. Some large areas of the capital could be left without a functioning ticket office for miles! Transport for London has a deliberate strategy to lengthen queues and frustrate its long-suffering passengers, at a time when we know more people need to travel by tube and rail for the sake of the environment. Such a plan would lead to more ticket disputes and fewer staff available to help passengers; at night particularly unstaffed stations sound like a mugger´s paradise!
Transport for London has a deliberate strategy to lengthen queues and frustrate its long-suffering passengers; all at a time when we know more people need to travel by Tube and rail for the sake of our environment. It beggars belief! Such a plan would lead to more ticket disputes and fewer staff available to help passengers.
Monday,26 November 8.00-9.30 am at Whitechapel Tube
Wednesday 28 November 4.30-6pm at Finsbury Park Tube
Monday 3 December 8.00-9.30 pm at Turnpike Lane Tube
Wednesday 5 December 8.00-9.30am at Archway Tube
Tuesday 11 December 8.00-9.30am at Stratford Tube
Wednesday 12 December 4.30-6pm at Warren Street Tube
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