Building global strength - RTBU at the Bangkok meeting of ITF rail unions

By Ashley Waddell, National Organiser

Ashley Waddell

Rail unions represent workers in the oldest mode of motorized transport in the world, and the ITF believes that today rail has a brighter future than ever because of the threat of global warming by pollution from other modes of inland transport, e.g. cars, buses, trucks. Politicians and governments around the world are starting to realise this.

Transport is the circulation system of the global economy and our transport unions need to organize globally to protect the wages and conditions for all transport workers. The ITF is our global union.

World-wide there are continued attacks on rail workers and their unions through restructuring, privatisation and globalisation. 'Doesn't that sound familiar?', I found myself thinking.

In particular, on-train crew and station staff, mostly women, are copping abuse from the public because services are getting worse due to privatisation and contracting out. The ITF is now very concerned at the low involvement of women in rail unions and unions generally, and sees increased recruitment and involvement of women workers as vital to the survival of unions.

The World Bank is pushing governments world-wide to restructure and privatise their state owned railways before releasing funding to them for railway projects Jane Barrett from the South African rail union (SATAWA) has been seconded to the World Bank for six months to try to get the World Bank to look at things in a more union-friendly way. Good luck.

In the 1970s, the World Bank funded 83 railway investment projects, in the 1990s this was down to 50, and in this decade so far it is just 20.

One report after another was about splitting up the railways into sections then liberalising. The two main sections are operations above rail, and infrastructure. Then comes the track deterioration, and little investment in infrastructure.

The reports also exposed the deterioration of working conditions. For instance, drivers in the Ukraine work a train for 680 kilometres, have a short break then work the train back. OH&S in many poor countries is a serious problem.

The Republican Party in the USA is making it harder for unions to organise. Railroad companies are merging to form coast-to-coast companies, such as CSX and Union Pacific, also Santa Fe and Burlington North. Two railway unions have merged with the Teamsters Union, and currently there are 19 unions covering railways in the USA.

On the positive side, Argentina expects to reopen 700 kilometres of branch lines, and Brazil expects large funding for investment in railways for new mines. On the Friday, two things occurred which I will always remember.

First, before being addressed by a visitor from Burma, we were told not to take his photo or to write his name down for fear of reprisal from the military dictatorship. I have had bosses that may not have liked me for being a delegate, but I have never had to fear for my life.

He spoke of the atrocious conditions that they are forced to endure in Burma, working old steam locos that burn oil not coal, and little or no track maintenance. A supervisor earns a paltry US$7 per month, when the cost of living is US$70 a month. Workers receive no medical treatment after work-related incidents.

Second, after the conference had finished, about 120 delegates piled onto five buses and headed off to Government House to take part in a protest march to a rally at the democracy monument, against a plan to privatise the railways. We marched in the muggy heat with workers from the State Railway Workers Union of Thailand (SRUT), so all up there was approximately 300 people. Ten years ago that wouldn't have been possible in Thailand.

I was proud to be Australia's representative at this march and rally, and the Thai workers really did appreciate the show of solidarity from the rest of the world in their fight against privatisation.

Our chalenge is to hang on to what we have. We have to build alliances with unions that we would not have thought about ten years ago.

But with companies like Toll and Patrick now being total logistics companies, where they look after their customers from the production line to the shelf in the shop, we also need to establish the ability to have our power reaching from the production line to the shop shelf.

This applies not only here in Australia but also with our brothers and sisters across the Tasman where Tolls now control the New Zealand railways.