Congress 2002: C21 motion on Transport

C21 TRANSPORT

Motions 51 and amendments and 52

Congress is aware that present trends of road traffic growth in Britain are physically unsustainable, undermine our ability to meet emission targets agreed at Kyoto, cause significant health problems and carry many other social costs. Congress calls on the Government to revise the 10-year transport plan to set significant national and local targets for reducing the UK’s environmentally, social and economically damaging levels of congestion.

This should be achieved by a combination of measures including:

Congress notes one of the principal findings of the Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) Report on European Best Practice in Delivering Integrated Transport is that the UK’s 'transport network (has been) starved of investment for half a century'.

Congress welcomes the Government’s commitment to improving the nation’s transport system but believes that emulating European standards of integrated transport provision will require two fundamental developments:

a) significant central government funding for infrastructure enhancement and service provision; and

b) structural reform of the railway industry.

Congress also supports the publicly owned not-for-profit successor to Railtrack, as a step towards complete renationalisation of the former British Rail and the objective of a publicly owned, publicly accountable railway industry, and considers that Network Rail should be directly responsible for inspecting the network and for directly employing maintenance and renewal workers.

The appalling tragedies at Ladbroke Grove, Southall and Hatfield are all incidents which are the consequences of the privatised rail industry’s policy to destaff and cut back on vital safety work. Congress also notes that the infrastructure companies responsible for the maintenance of our railway network have been awarded contracts on London Underground and believes that the prospect of this privatisation will place the lives of workers and the travelling public at risk. Congress therefore opposes the PPP for London Underground.

Congress notes with deep regret the continued demise of the UK ratings job and the failure of government policies to remedy a situation that allows owners to pay as little as 70 pence an hour. Congress also calls for the repeal of Section 9 of the 1976 Race Relations Act which allows shipowners to drive down wages of all seafarers.

Congress deplores the de-regulated bus industry and calls for measures to redress the culture of long hours and low pay fostered by unscrupulous employers.

Congress calls for a campaign on transport issues in Britain and with the international bodies we are affiliated with, and calls upon the General Council to establish a task group of transport unions that meets at regular intervals to carry forward policy and campaigning on transport issues.

MOVER : Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association

SECONDER: National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers

SUPPORTERS: Transport and General Workers’ Union

Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen