Rail Strikes

Richard Burgon Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Burgon (Leeds East) (Lab)]

Nothing excites Conservative Members more than the chance to give the trade unions a good kicking. Some of their speeches have been chilling in their anti-trade union bile. Why do they not get as passionate about the number of food banks in this country as they do about bashing the trade unions and bashing working people who are trying to defend their pay, their jobs, their terms, their conditions and, of course, public safety? As a trade union lawyer for 10 years before being elected to Parliament, I know something that many Conservative Members do not seem to know: working people go on strike as a last resort, not a first resort.

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I have been on strike a few times myself. Does he think that any Opposition Member who has received a donation from the RMT should put that money in a pot to help people who suffer during next week’s rail strike? Does he also think that other MPs who have stolen money from the mineworkers—165 grand in the case of the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery) —should pay it back?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Thank you very much.

[Richard Burgon]

The only time we seem to hear Conservative MPs worrying about the future of our children, our public services, nurses, doctors and other workers seems to be when they are condemning a potential strike. Isn’t it funny that they do not seem to have this concern for working people at any other point?

Today, I was looking at an interesting letter, dated 27 May 2020, from the Secretary of State for Transport to the RMT. There was a handwritten flourish at the end of the letter in the handwriting of the Secretary of State, and it said:

“Thank you for your continued engagement with Chris Heaton-Harris and me as we try to bring services back together. Your members have been true heroes!”

Those are the words of the Secretary of State for Transport, written in his own hand, to the RMT.

[James Daly]

Many self-employed people have been heroes throughout the pandemic. They have gone out every day to provide services. As a result of this strike, they will not be able to go to work, earn money and eat. So what does the hon. Gentleman say to those people, who will not be able to earn money to put food on the table for their families as a result of the actions of the RMT?

[Richard Burgon]

What I would say to the hon. Gentleman is that the Transport Secretary should reply positively to the letter from the RMT today, which is in the public domain and which asks for a meeting with him and the Chancellor, without preconditions, to try to sort this out. The RMT does not want this strike to have to go ahead.

The truth is that the Conservatives are living their Thatcherite revivalist fantasies; anybody would think we were back to the age of the “enemy within”. Let me tell them this: train drivers, cleaners and people who work on our railways are not the enemy within. They are true heroes. They are the people who keep our society running and who bring our communities together. They deserve to be treated with respect. The Secretary of State put in his own hand that they are true heroes, and I agree. If they are true heroes, why move this politically contemptuous motion today? This is from the same repugnant right-wing box as that sick Rwanda policy. It is all about kicking migrants, kicking workers and seeking to cling on to power. This motion, just like that vile Rwanda policy, is red meat for rabid Tory right-wing Back Benchers. That is why the Conservatives have got so excited and so red-faced on those Back Benches today, shouting about unions and treating them as the enemy within.

Politics is about which side you are on. I am proud to be a supporter of the trade union movement and to be supported by it. The people who should be ashamed are those whose politics are framed not by mass movements of the working class but by the billionaires and those at the very top, who have done very well in this crisis. So I say: meet the RMT, agree to no compulsory redundances, agree that all rail workers should receive a fair pay rise that takes into account the rising cost of living, and agree that working conditions and jobs are subject to renegotiation and agreement with the RMT. Let us also stop lecturing rail workers on modernisation. They want to modernise, but we are not in the best place to lecture them about that, in this Ruritanian palace of powdered wigs, buckled shoes and swords. It makes us look out of touch. I will tell you this: the railway workers earn their pay; not every MP does.