RAIL UNION RMT will be out in force at railway stations up and down the UK tomorrow (17 December) to launch the "Rail Cuts Cost Lives" campaign against 1500 threatened Network Rail maintenance job losses.
RMT members will be leafleting the public explaining that the threatened jobs cull on the tracks will compromise safety the length and breadth of the country and take us back to exactly the kind of shambolic maintenance conditions that led to the disasters at Paddington, Hatfield, Potters Bar and Grayrigg.
The Network Rail maintenance cuts are driven by money and a dash for billions of pounds of savings at a time when there is increasing demand for rail travel.
RMT members are already reporting cuts and backlogs in the frequency of track, signals, overhead lines and level crossing inspections and the union is compiling a dossier of evidence of the potentially lethal impact as the cuts programme begins to bite.
Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary, said today:
"Network Rail are taking a reckless and cash-driven gamble on rail safety just at the time when we need to be expanding services. When the public realise that important standards are being compromised in the dash for job cuts we know that they will sign up to the RMT's campaign and that's why we are taking our message out to the station forecourts.
"The proposes axing of 1500 rail maintenance jobs will have a devastating impact and will be felt right across the UK. This cuts programme must be stopped before we have another disaster on the tracks."
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