'OFFER' REJECTED OUTRIGHT

Your elected governing body of the RMT (NEC) met on 09/02/23 to collate feedback from regional and national mass meetings, reps, and members to discuss the most recent and much publicised proposal from the Rail Delivery Group. Having vociferously presented them with our response (in the form of numerous branch resolutions, and one from the North East Regional Council as a whole, using feedback from you, the members) we are pleased to report that the RDG proposal has been rejected outright.

If we had accepted these proposals, one of the major points to which we would be agreeing would be an enforced consultation on jobs. So, when in the future, your employer decides your position is no longer required - be it catering, travel consultant, guard/train manager/conductor - we would have agreed to this in advance.

Rest assured they are coming for our jobs and our future: it’s there in black and white in the proposal. We would have been unable to follow any course of industrial response, we would have been unable to escalate. We would have had to accept those job cuts. And for what? A small lump sum of back pay and a paltry pay rise?

It was clear, however, that our membership overwhelmingly saw through the spin and the disingenuous talk of pay, and realised exactly what acceptance of this proposal would mean (see more on page 2).

Members must remember that since private operators have put on new contracts, they have made over £300 million in taxpayer funded profits: profits that are not invested into the railway in this country. They have also been indemnified to the tune of £310 million so that they have not lost a single penny as a result of our strike action This money, given to them on a plate, would have equated to a 10 6% pay rise for our members

The government have admitted it would have been cheaper to settle this dispute – so ask yourself why have they not? Why keep presenting us with these poor excuses for 'offers', barely covering the minimum that our members might possibly, one day, deign to accept? They do this because they want to destroy our union and its members, and, as we can see in the new strike-breaking legislation Rishi Sunak is desperate to rush through before his party is obliterated in the next election, trade unions and the working class as a whole

We were balloted on three fundamental issues: 1 2 3

This 'offer' achieved none of these and we were right to reject it outright: it did not even deserve to be lent credibility by being put to a membership vote

We must now continue fighting We must stand together throughout the next strike dates that have just been announced for March and April – it is crucial we stay strong and resist the attacks that will inevitably be directed our way by the government and the media as soon as the news breaks that we are going to stand strong and not roll over to their pressure