Justice for the Jarvis workers

Yesterday, I attended the march in York in support of the Jarvis workers who have been made redundant. The march itself was just like the good old days - megaphones, banners and copies of the Socialist Worker on sale; in fact, it's a shame there weren't a few chants of "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie, Out! Out! Out!" for old times' sake. I ended up with a good friend of mine holding the other end of his banner. But the purpose was certainly deadly serious.

The fiasco leading up to the sacking of the workers is testament to the dysfunctionality of the privatized rail system. Network Rail slashed its track renewal programme by 30% last year, leaving Jarvis in a vulnerable position and the firm finally collapsed in March. Meanwhile, engineering work has been contracted out to other firms employing agency staff. The workers have asked for a TUPE arrangement, which means that they would be taken on by the other companies doing the work under existing terms and conditions. Because this hasn't been applied already, the taxpayer could end up footing the bill for redundancy pay, while skilled employees are thrown out of work. This is entirely typical of the rail industry - public subsidy goes in at one end and private profit comes out at the other, a fact that seems to be lost on some people in other political parties.

However, as of earlier this week, Yorkshire minister Rosie Winterton was still insisting that Network Rail was a private company and that she couldn't intervene. Hugh Bayley, who didn't come to the march (though some of his Labour colleagues on the city council did) has pledged "100% support" for the workers, though it's not clear exactly what will happen in practice as a result of his representations.

It was interesting that a local PC who was policing the march came up to me and said how shocking she thought the treatment of the Jarvis workers was. Of course we need TUPE and decency for Jarvis staff - but we also need to end the shambles of a fractured rail system in which the different entities look after their own interests instead of those of the travelling public.

The Greens are the only party at this election calling for the railways to be brought back into public ownership.