The case for municipal ownership

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Contexto de página: Página principal > Revista 'Transporte Internacional' > Issue 34 - January 2009 > The case for municipal ownership

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The ITF has a strong history of promoting and supporting public transport. Martin Mayer explains why the ITF’s urban transport committee’s new charter is still opposing privatisation

Since the mid-1980s, the urban transport committee of the ITF has been forced to grapple with the highly political debate on the ownership and control of public transport. This follows the privatisation and deregulation of local bus services in the UK in 1986, which rapidly became a political trend pursued by many governments in Europe and in many other places around the world. Governments, anxious to reduce public spending and cut taxation, were attracted by the substantial one-off injection of cash which could be generated by a sell-off of their municipally owned assets, but were also enticed by the claims of right-wing economists that private ownership would deliver efficiencies, innovation and reduce the need for public subsidies.

Some ITF affiliates were not necessarily against the privatisation of public transport at first. In the case of some Eastern European affiliates, there had been a poor experience of an over-bureaucratised state apparatus which had ignored the needs of the public transport workers. Some unions both there and elsewhere hoped that the private sector would deliver much needed investment in infrastructure, as well as introducing overdue efficiencies which might flow through into better wages and conditions.

Most unions quickly changed their view once they experienced the types of changes being demanded by the new private owners. Typically trade unions and their members in privatised local public transport operations faced demands for job cuts, longer hours, lower rates of pay for new starters, and various concessions on conditions such as sick pay, holidays and pensions. This was logical as the new private owners sought to maximise profits by targeting savings in their labour costs, which are usually well in excess of 50 per cent of overall costs.

Charter for Public Transport

The ITF urban transport committee has agreed and is now finalising an ITF Charter for Public Transport. This includes a very prominent statement opposing privatisation and deregulation of local public transport. The statement does support those affiliates who have no choice but to accept that privatisation cannot be stopped, but urges them to seek to ensure a tightly controlled contract system is opted for, with maximum protection for workers’ pay and conditions, rather than the deregulated model. It also states that strong trade union organisation is essential to protect members against attacks on terms and conditions from the new private owners. The statement concludes by advocating a strong role for democratically elected local councils in controlling and funding public transport services and advocates the municipal ownership model for our local bus, tram and metro services.

The charter also advocates public investment to modernise and expand public transport, so that a real alternative can be provided to the private car. Public transport should be clean, modern, frequent and reliable and service timetables and fares should be simple and easy to understand. Fares subsidy is actively encouraged in order to stimulate a real modal shift as well as reduce the onerous cost of transport for working people and their families. Services should be accessible to the elderly, infirm and disabled as well as parents with pushchairs and young children.

A section of the charter also deals with the problem of safety and security on public transport, particularly as a result of violent and unsociable behaviour. This requires specific measures to protect staff and passengers from assault. Improvements to public transport networks are an essential part of the solution to traffic congestion and pollution in our towns and cities and can help to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels with its impact on climate change. Privatised public transport, if left to the vagaries of the market, cannot be relied on for this much needed investment and expansion, which will need proactive policies from governments backed up by public finance.

Supporting unions

At the most recent ITF road transport workers’ section conference, a resolution drew attention to recent hikes in fuel prices to reemphasise the importance of promoting public transport as an alternative to the private car. Working people have been particularly badly hit by fuel price increases. Yet in the absence of good public transport alternatives they are left with no choice but to pay the increased cost of petrol and diesel. The motion urged affiliates to campaign with their national governments to readdress their policy towards transport and climate change and invest more heavily in public transport, with the very important caveat that leaving this to the market will simply not deliver the required change.

The ITF has promised to assist affiliates in any practical way it can in such campaigns and indeed has a proud record of assistance to affiliates who have tried to resist government initiatives to privatise their public transport networks. Sometimes these have been successful. The ITF has helped bilateral contacts such as putting affiliates in touch with those unions which have experience of privatisation and deregulation. The TGWU Transport and General Workers’ Union (now a section of Unite) of Great Britain has via the ITF sent speakers to other affiliates’ conferences to warn against the effects of privatisation and deregulation. This has helped to dispel myths and disinformation from employers and politicians about the supposed benefits of privatisation.

Actual reversals of privatisation of public transport services are few in number, but they are significant and have been the direct result of campaigns by ITF affiliated unions. In the UK, the rail unions have long been vocal critics of rail privatisation which has proved to be highly costly to the British taxpayer and is widely held to be responsible for an appalling safety record, as well as having a very serious downward effect on the job security and conditions for rail infrastructure staff in particular. As a result, the Labour government was forced to renationalise Railtrack, the private monopoly which owned and controlled the track and infrastructure. The train operations still remain in private hands, however.

In New Zealand, a Labour government has brought the entire rail network back in-house after a costly and unsatisfactory experience of private ownership. Proposals to privatise more rail networks are slowing down as the failure to deliver the promised benefits becomes evident elsewhere. However, Germany is still pushing ahead with the privatisation of the national rail system, apparently with at least some support from the largest rail union Transnet.

Meanwhile back in the UK, where the trend to privatise and deregulate local bus services first kicked off, there are at least some positive developments following a long campaign by UK’s largest bus union, the TGWU. A bill now making its way through parliament will enable local authorities to regain control over their deregulated and privatised local bus services. Local authorities will be given powers to contract out the network to bus operators under a tendering system. This will at least reverse the legacy of deregulation which has allowed private operators a free hand to cut services, raise fares and extract huge profits out of a declining level of service with fewer passengers.

ITF-affiliated trade unions are generally more focused on the politics of neo-liberalism than ever before and the evidence is increasingly available for all to see that privatisation, especially where accompanied by deregulation, has failed miserably to deliver the promised benefits. It’s also been shown to be a costlier exercise than expected for local and national governments.

Governments will all have to readdress their transport policies in the light of the increased cost of fuel and the self-evident threat of climate change. Trade unions with membership in public transport will increasingly be leading the way in demanding real increases in public funding for public transport, proactive policies to expand bus and rail services and a reversal of the failed policies of privatisation and deregulation.

Martin Mayer of the Transport and General Workers’ section of Unite, Great Britain, is chair of the ITF road transport workers’ section.

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Issue 34 - January 2009

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