RMT general secretary Bob Crow and union activists will be out among commuters at Paddington Station on Monday morning (May 21), urging rail users to join the campaign for an end to First Great Western’s "big squeeze" (links below.)
http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2007/05/rmt_urges_passengers_to_help_e.html#more

http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2007/05/passengers_who_are_treated_wor.html#more

Days after the First Group posted a huge rise in rail profits to more than £108 million , the union will be asking Paddington passengers to join the call for Great Western rail services to be returned to the public sector.

Bob Crow will be available for interview at Paddington Station from 08:00 on Monday, May 21.

In the coming weeks RMT activists , alongside passenger groups including More Train Less Strain , will leaflet commuters across the Great Western franchise , as the first step in a new national campaign for public ownership of rail.

Yes, I think this severely reduced the credibility of MTLS as a genuine passenger pressure group.

It seems now to have evolved into a political campaign with an anti-corporatists agenda.

Does the RMT fund MTLS, I wonder?

Working in a business where we have had to learn some hard lessons in poor tender specification and then had to live with the consequences, perhaps the fault lies not so much with the franchise winner who will gleefully run to the lawyers to find the holes when they have succesfully bid, but in the woeful tendering process in the first place.

The DfT and Councils really do seem to be amateurs when it comes to setting tender specifications, I'm sure it's not beyond the whit of the DfT to specify that the £1.3b that First said it could generate for Gordy (tax the traveller) should have been re-invested in the railway. We might even have had HST2 built, pacers replaced and something other than the footbridge to shelter under at Trowbridge when it rains.

I disagree, I think the credibility of MTLS is severely damaged by its clearly very cosy and close links
to the RMT.  I would go as far to say that the 1970s throwbacks who lead the RMT are 'using' MTLS to stir up trouble to further their rather absurd call for renationalisation.

As far as I am aware, MTLS was set up as a 'passenger power' movement to campaign for additional rolling stock to ease overcrowding for westcountry commuters.
To move from this to an overtly political campaign aimed at removing FGW's franchise and/or renationalisation means that what they say will be taken with a much larger pinch of salt by journalists.

I think this is already very clear from the almost complete lack of media interest in the protest on Monday.

MTLS ever closer links with the RMT will not help their campaign at all.

I am not sure, Mr Ambrose, why you claim to be watching me ‘with amusement’. I don’t believe I have ever made specific reference to MTLS on my blog or on any discussion forum. In any case, the first two sentences of your post make absolutely no sense whatsoever so it is difficult for me to discern your exact meaning.

Perhaps you are amused by the fact that I do not support re-nationalisation of our railways. You are, of course, quite welcome to work yourself into a state of hilarity over the issue but your time would probably be better spent trying to comprehend the position that I have consistently advanced.

You claim that the franchise system doesn’t work. What you conveniently evade is the fact that this system is the product of government. It is not the product of the private sector. You cannot blame private companies for having to operate within a system, not of their choosing or design, which means the railways are run on a short term basis and in a fashion which is less than ideal. The blame for this specific problem lies fully with government incompetence. As such, it is incredulous to suggest that services will be improved by handing over the whole railway to the same group of people who are completely incapable of designing and running even a sensible operating structure.

You then go on to assert that private companies reduced services and put up fares. What you fail to take into account is that at least some of these things have been engineered by government, not by private franchisees. Naturally, private companies will want to make cuts where services are not viable and, naturally, they will want to put up fares where their costs are not covered by operating revenue. But do you sincerely believe that a government run system would deliver the exact service you want at a reasonable price? If you do, you are labouring under an illusion.

You complain about the fact the railway companies are making ‘huge profits’, yet you completely ignore the fact that the government is making significantly more money from the Greater Western franchise than First Group. You also brush aside the fact that the operating margin of a train company is extremely low compared to other business sectors. By what standards, exactly, is First Great Western making ‘huge’ profits from its franchise? Huge compared to what or whom?

Bemoaning the profit motive may curry favour with the chattering classes who are ignorant of even the most basic fundamentals of economics but it will not give you a better railway. Building a better railway requires capital investment to buy new rolling stock, to maintain infrastructure and to allow for future development. There are only two places this can come from: the government or private sources. The former, no matter what it says, will starve the railways of cash. Government has endless calls on a limited pot of money and it will not, and cannot, afford to run the railway on a ‘public service’ basis regardless of economic realities. This restricting of capital flows into the railways was exactly what happened under British Rail and, is as so conveniently forgotten, it gave rise to a massive backlog of infrastructure maintenance and improvement projects the effects of which we are still suffering from today.

The private sector, if it is to invest, will demand a return on its investment. That return can only be derived from profits. Some argue that the railways could be run on a ‘cooperative basis’ where all surplus went back into the running of the system. What this fails to take into account is that, unless fares were to increase dramatically, it would take a long period of time to save for large capital projects and to undertake future, long term development. Certainly cooperative companies could take out a loan, but that loan would need to be repaid with interest –  so, effectively, profit would still be taken out of the operation and would pass into private hands, it’s just that, in this case, the private hands would be that of a financial institution rather than of shareholders in a normal private company. There is absolutely no getting around the fact that profit is neither evil nor damaging: it is an essential component of a successful economy. And that applies to railways as it does to everything else.

In conclusion, while I do not doubt that you want a better railway, I do question the way in which you propose to enact this. You are entitled to your views, but the truth is that any call for nationalisation is little more than a knee jerk reaction based on economic sophisms and sloppy analysis. The way in which the railway is organised does need to be changed, but re-nationalisation is not the answer.

The stance I take rather depends on how you want to define anti-corporatism.

Criticising a company because you disagree with its policies is not being anti-corporatist. Stating that a company is incompetent because it runs its services badly, even if others hold divergent views on the matter, is not being anti-corporatist.

Stating that the profit motive is bad and that we would all be better under a system of public ownership *is* anti-corporatist. Forget whether you agree with the assertion or not, there is no getting around the fact that it is, by its very definition, an anti-corporatist position.

My blog is clear on the distinction between these two points. I do not believe in the anti-corporatist agenda. I have neither time nor respect for it because it is based on flawed analysis and an often deliberate misreading of how the economy and the railway functions. Most importantly it will not, ultimately, make things better for travellers. Quite the opposite, it will make things significantly worse.

That is one of the reasons I established the blog: to deal with the mass of misinformation and the large number of fallacies surrounding First Great Western. I wanted to demonstrate that these things were wrong and that they were often unfair.

That said, my blog does not exist to defend Great Western per se. I have said many times in various comments and I am happy to repeat again, that First Great Western (much like any company) is not perfect. It does make mistakes and it does get things wrong. And where it does, people are right to criticise and to complain.

As for the assertion that the truth is ‘everyone would be better off if the DfT removed the constraints placed on First’, that is untrue. I am not naïve enough to believe that such a situation would make everything better for everyone. Indeed, I specifically said as much on the blog in the entry entitled ‘you can’t please…’. The removal of government interference would create a more effective railway. It would create a stronger railway. And, it would create a more financially viable railway. It would not, necessarily, benefit everyone. Under a system with no government involvement (including no subsidy) there would need to be restructuring and, inevitably, some lines would close and some people would lose out.

But that misses the point. The real point is that even if you want to keep subsidy and government involvement to maintain unprofitable lines, there are better ways to structure the system; ways which are much more likely to deliver a better railway for all.

There are several erudite and detailed arguments for and against an alliance between MTLS and RMT.  As many of you will know from other forums, I am a Wiltshire based, front-line FGW employee and I am also an RMT member.  I try not to comment too much as these forums are customer based and my viewpoint is not always relevant.  But I do try and illustrate and explain some of the apparently bizarre happenings on the railway to improve understanding of how it works (or sometimes doesn't).

In the debate about the MTLS/RMT alliance, I totally agree with CJHarrison's comments.  The monthly RMT magazine makes me so angry that it has to go in the bin the moment that I have skimmed through it.  The magazine is basically a mouthpiece for the views of Bob Crow stated in simple cliched terms which can be easily understood by the Sun readership who are the majority of members.  I only remain a member for the job protection that being a Union member offers.  My feeling is that the RMT is a dictatorship with Bob Crow as the unchallenged leader with a handful of cronies protecting his position.  It is one of the last of the bad old 70s Unions using power and bullying to retain it's position.  Not that ASLEF is much better, but that's not the discussion.

The magazine generally has ten or more photos of Brother Bob showing his support at various political rallies, arm in arm with a downtrodden rank-and-file member, spouting off a few cliches before being whisked off to another photoshoot.  He is entirely politically motivated and never misses an opportunity to side with whoever is having a stab at the Government of the day.  Apart from his high-profile campaign to re-nationalise the railway, he uses every level crossing accident to publicise his other, equally ludicrous campaign.  He demands that every level crossing in the UK be replaced with a bridge or a tunnel.  It's obvious that it can never happen but it is a great vehicle for gaining publicity as he can argue as a champion of public safety and nobody dare take an opposite view other than that of cost. Cost versus Lives!

Did you see him on Question Time the other day?  He turned a debate on terrorism laws into a personal attack on Michael Heseltine about the 70s miners' strike to allow him to make his outdated political statements.

I would be very careful about being associated with the RMT.  Their desires may appear to be the same, but their motives will not be.

One other comment on this discussion, and again in agreement with CJHarrison, about franchising.  There are several extremely well-informed and intelligent debaters who have made highly detailed arguments of their points for and against aspects of franchising.  I am one of those people who prefer to read and observe and then try to find a simple explanation. Like sitting on a cloud and looking down from afar!  I see franchising as the Government employing a management company to manage one of their assets on their behalf.  They retain ownership and control of policies and the management company agree to manage it in the manner in which they are instructed.  The Government takes most of the profit but the management company is allowed to take 5% of turnover as payment for their services.  As the asset is owned by the Government, surely it is they who should pay for any extra investment - much as a landlord is responsible for property maintenance or improvements. 

As I have said before , I havent decided which vision of the future I prefer. I am glad that CJ takes a realistic approach to how his proposals could pose a threat to the viability of several lines & stations.

If he can come up with a system that truly delivers a better railway for all , then I would be all for it.