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European Action Day of Public Transport Workers, 5 May 2006
4 May 2006
The European Transport Workers’ Federation calls for a European Action Day for public transport on 5 May 2006. In 12 EU Member States, public transport trade unions will inform bus, tram, metro and railway workers as well as the users of public transport about the future European legislation for public passenger transport which is currently discussed in Council of Transport Ministers and on the agenda of its meeting on 8 June 2006 for decision.
For ETF there are three main questions on the table, which are relevant for the future of public transport:
Organisation of public passenger transport
The European Commission wants to impose the principle of competition in form of competitive tendering for public transport across Europe. Derogations from this principle are defined in such a strict way that they may apply only in a few cases.
The ETF is of the opinion that public transport is a service of general interest which is organised and used locally. There must be democratic decision on how to organise public transport and a democratic control. We demand that municipalities, cities, regions and states have the freedom to decide on their own upon how to organise public passenger transport. No EU legislation must impose competitive tendering.
“Experiences show that competition in public transport is mainly a price competition. Quality is out of the line. Still existing publicly owned companies are endangered because they are not able to compete with the price underbidding practices of the big multinationals,” says ETF Deputy General Secretary Sabine Trier.
Quality and social standards
ETF demands that in the case of competitive tendering of public transport services, quality must be guaranteed by imposing standards on tender candidates. Quality criteria are: regularity of public transport, access for all, security of the offer, social prices for particular passenger groups, quality of the busses and other vehicles, safety for passengers and workers, environmental standards. But well trained personnel, working under good and not health threatening conditions contributes as well to good quality public transport.
The ETF demands that a future European legislation provides that public authorities must impose such quality and social standards on candidates in a competitive tendering procedure. This must include the compulsory respect of collective agreements. Such a provision avoids a pure price competition. All candidates must participate on an equal footing to labour costs. This will open the opportunity for a competition based on quality.
In former proposals the European Commission recognised such quality and social criteria. They are now deleted in the latest version from 2005. “For transport workers but as well for users of public transport it is a scandal that such quality criteria were deleted with the argument of subsidiarity, while this argument is not accepted when it is about the introduction of EU wide competition in the interest of multinational companies”, says Sabine Trier.
Protection of workers in the case of change of operator
A change of operator as a result of a competitive tendering process is often used in order to fire existing workers and replace them by cheaper personnel. Or to offer them work contracts with lower conditions than before. Each time when a contract ends, public transport workers have to fear about their jobs. To guarantee quality of public transport such a situation must not be allowed.
Therefore ETF demands that a future EU legislation provides on a compulsory bases that in the case of change of operator the existing personnel has to be protected, employed by the new operator under at least the same conditions than before.
“This position supported by the European Parliament when it voted on this piece of legislation in 2001. We hope that the EU Transport Ministers will follow the vote of the European Parliament on 8 June” says Sabine Trier.
For further information please contact Sabine Trier, Tel. 0032 2 285 46 67, mobile 0032 477 512 814, s.trier@etf-europe.org
ENDS
For more information please contact:
European Transport Workers' Federation
Rue du Midi 165
B-1000 Bruxelles
Tel: +32 (2) 285 4660
Fax: +32 (2) 280 0817
Email: etf@etf-europe.org
Web: www.etf-europe.org
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