TSSA

TSSA brands tory rail plans ‘direct attack on workers & public’
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date 23 November 2019
source TSSA
type Press release

TSSA General Secretary, Manuel Cortes, has branded Conservative plans to ban all-out rail strikes as a “direct attack on workers and the general public” which was bound to fail.

The Tories have said that if returned to power they would pass a law ensuring that – in the event of industrial action on the railways - some services would need to operate for the strike to be legal.

Rail companies and unions would be required to sign ‘minimum service agreements’ that would set out in advance the numbers and the nature of staff who would remain at work during a strike.

Cortes said: “This is a naked attempt to stop working people taking action when their bosses are out of line. It’s a direct attack on our democracy, workers across our railways as well as the general public.

“The Tories clearly don’t have a clue about our railways – what they are proposing is mindless and would have a huge negative impact on passengers.

“Having minimum level of service agreements give a false expectation that lines are running as normal and lead to huge disappointment and anger for commuters when they are confronted with queuing up.to board jam packed trains.

“This is a nonsense of a policy doomed to fail. It amounts to little more than election bluster. When Johnson became Mayor of London he said he’d implement a no strike policy. He was there for eight years and he never did.

“All we are seeing today is Tory desperation as the gap between them and Labour continues to narrow. Labour is the only Party offering to end the great railway rip off of Tory privatisation.”

ENDS
Douglas Beattie
Press and Communications Officer - TSSA
Tel: 077 305 74087
email - beattied@tssa.org.uk
www.tssa.org.uk

Railhub Archive ::: 2019-11-23 TSS-001