As summer nears, TOM HARDY explains how unions are organising heat strikes and cool stations while calling for legal maximum workplace temperatures — because employers currently have no duty to protect workers from dangerous heat
Latest editorial
Strong unions for Scotland’s workers
Collective action is the only way to protect the working class everywhere from the cost-of-living crisis, says RMT general secretary MICK LYNCH
Mick Lynch, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), joins union members on the picket line outside Euston station in London, March 16, 2023
European Central Bank chief Christine Lagarde sees Trump’s many disruptions as an opportunity to challenge the dollar’s ‘exorbitant privilege’ — but greater Euro assertiveness will also mean greater warmongering and militarism, warns NICK WRIGHT
KEITH BARLOW examines the 1975 referendum that saw Britain vote to stay in the EEC, revealing how Tony Benn understood that EU free-market principles and capital movement rules would tie the hands of any government putting people’s interests before corporate profits
Tom Morrison pays tribute to the blacklisted engineering apprentice turned communist organiser who spent decades transforming Drumchapel's unemployed workers’ centre into a hub of political education, drama groups and activism
The distinction between domestic and military drones is more theoretical than practical, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
JOHN ELLISON looks back at Labour’s opportunistic tendency, when in office, to veer to the right on policy as well as ideological worldview
Long-term monitoring gives an in-depth picture of marine heatwaves around our coastline, writes TIM SMYTH
RMT is proud to put its shoulder to the wheel for our members and their colleagues across the transport and offshore energy sectors to get a better deal for Scotland’s workers.
With the cost-of-living crisis eating away at workers’ terms and conditions, STUC unions are meeting in Dundee at just the right time to co-ordinate our industrial mettle.
It is heartening to see a diverse range of motions from across Scotland’s trade unions which reflect this emergency.
The SNP government is to be congratulated for nationalising ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper (from June 2023), and for keeping CalMac public.
But the acid test is to keep those contracts and strong collective bargaining arrangements in the public sector, permanently.
And the crisis that has quickly engulfed the SNP following Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as first minister must not threaten these advances for workers or passengers or the public investment which underpins them.
On rail, we welcome the commitment given to RMT by the new First Minister Humza Yousaf MSP that if elected he would categorically keep ScotRail and Caledonian Sleeper services in public ownership.
As our rail motion to STUC highlights, public transport is central to the Scottish government’s climate change and car reduction targets, and with its rail passenger services in public ownership, the Scottish government has no excuse not to prioritise investing in expanding and improving Scotland’s railway.
This must include as a starting point, reversing the cuts to ScotRail rail services introduced since Covid-19, putting an end once and for all to the threat of cuts to ticket offices and investing in rail infrastructure.
As part of investing in rail, the Scottish government must see staff as an asset not as a cost to be cut like the Tories. Staff are key to making rail travel safe, secure and accessible.
It is timely that a recent report by Transport Scotland on women and girls’ safety on public transport found that the presence of staff and staffed ticket offices was central to their feelings of safety when travelling and recommended that staffing be increased.
We expect the Scottish government to act on the recommendations of its own research without delay.
The threat of decline, however, is real on Scotland’s public ferry services. Project Neptune and endless consultation comes on top of the eight-year delay and ballooning cost of the two Ferguson Marine ferries.
The failure to deliver this contract is threatening the terms and conditions of CalMac staff, as well as the future of ferry operation and shipbuilding in the public sector.
Chartering ships which undermine our collective bargaining agreements at CalMac or anywhere else threatens a P&O-style race to the bottom.
RMT will never accept that and our fringe on CalMac aims to set out the case for a positive future for public ownership and operation of this lifeline ferry service.
On offshore energy, the Just Transition Commission was a world first but has not resulted in meaningful reform.
RMT attended the recent STUC energy conference where contributions from trade unionists and green groups starkly illustrated the urgent need for the Scottish government to take action.
From ringfencing funding for oil and gas workers to jobs guarantees at every stage in the development and operation of offshore wind farms off the Scottish coastline, the trade union movement can effect an industrial and political move away from disaster, rentier capitalism to a future of public ownership and full employment.
We look forward to the set political speeches at STUC and what we need to hear from the First Minister and the leader of Scottish Labour, Anas Sarwar, is a commitment to work with the STUC unions to actively oppose and obstruct the latest round of anti-worker legislation.
Whether it’s the scabs’ charter, minimum service levels or subsidy control legislation, the withdrawal of legislative consent must be the start and not the end of the response from Holyrood for Scotland’s workers on land and at sea.
Trade unions and their members are at the forefront of this fight and together we are driving home the message in our communities that collective action is the only way to protect the working class everywhere from an escalating cost-of-living crisis stoked by a right-wing Tory government.
More from this author
From a progressive transport agenda, to public spending, investment and sectoral collective bargaining, our union wants to see the long-overdue improvements that workers need and deserve, says MICK LYNCH
With a Labour government now in power it’s time to rebuild in the interests of working people, says MICK LYNCH
As workers gather at Durham under a Labour government for the first time in 15 years, RMT general secretary MICK LYNCH calls for the ambition and bold action of the post-war era to match the scale of Britain’s challenges
From defending Scotland’s ticket offices to making the case for a People’s CalMac, my union will be standing firm across the rail and maritime industries, says MICK LYNCH
