RMT- privatisation in its coffin
Union leaders are forecasting that rail privatisation is on its last legs after tracks maintenance contracts were taken away from private contractors.
The future upkeep of the track will be handed back to Network Rail, the successor to Railtrack.
Union bosses welcomed the decision, saying it was one step on the way to renationalising the industry, which was privatised in 1996.
Seven private firms – including Amec, Amey, Balfour Beatty, Jarvis and Serco – who, combined, employ 18,500 workers – will lose contracts estimated at GBP1.2 billion a year.
Though jobs are not expected to go, the workers will be re-employed by Network Rail.
Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union, said: “This is a major step towards the complete renationalisation of the railways which the RMT has been campaigning for for years.
“We were told that the railways would never come back to the public sector but it is clear now that privatisation is finally in its coffin and is waiting for the hole to be dug. It must surely be only a matter of time before track renewals are also brought back into public hands.”
The decision come after an announcement by not-for-profit Network Rail that an investigation would be launched into the track renewal contract on the West Coast Line by engineering firm Jarvis, after it emerged the track had been wrongly laid.
Jarvis strongly denied allegations it falsified records on the rail repairs.
