THE RMT has taken its fight for the Action Against Assaults on transport workers campaign to Holyrood with a demand for new legal safeguards.

The transport union’s campaign comes after British Transport Police (BTP) figures showed a staggering 43 per cent increase in attacks on rail workers between 2024 and 2025.

The union held a lobby in Holyrood today, bringing together MSPs of all parties, as well as representatives of transport employers, passengers, the BTP, and justice secretary Angela Constance to demand greater protections for workers.

Speaking ahead of the lobby, RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said: “No worker should go to their job fearing they will be assaulted, abused or threatened simply for doing their job.

“But that is the daily reality for far too many public transport workers.

“Seventy per cent of rail workers have faced violence in the past year and nearly half of our ferry members say the threat of violence is harming their mental health. That is a scandal which demands action.”

Ahead of May’s Scottish parliamentary elections, RMT has called on all parties to commit to offering transport workers the same protections already afforded in law to retail workers and those in the emergency services — should they win office.

Mr Dempsey said: “We welcome the engagement from the Scottish government to date and the meeting with the cabinet secretary for justice, but warm words must now become law.

“Retail and emergency service workers rightly have specific legal protection and we want the same for public transport workers too.

“As we approach the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections, every party must commit to creating a standalone offence of assaulting or abusing a public transport worker.”