{"id":29725,"date":"2021-08-10T16:24:04","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T15:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=29725"},"modified":"2021-08-10T16:24:06","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T15:24:06","slug":"fears-for-london-underground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=29725","title":{"rendered":"Fears for London Underground"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>The Transport for London (TfL) pension review has raised fears that the government could have plans to privatise the London Underground, Unite said today (Tuesday 10 August).<\/p>\n<p>The comments came as Unite launched a campaign to prevent TfL staff having their pensions plundered as a result of the Department of Transport (DfT) ordered pension review.<\/p>\n<p>Transport secretary Grant Shapps made the recent bailout of TfL conditional on its pension fund being reviewed.<\/p>\n<p>Unite raised concerns that the review could be used to slash pension costs, leaving TfL workers struggling in their retirement,\u00c2\u00a0while also making the London Underground more attractive to private bidders.<\/p>\n<p>Unite represents more than 2,000 workers directly employed by TfL, as well as 22,000 more across the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s public transport network.<\/p>\n<p>Unite regional officer Simon McCartney said,\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur members will not sit back and allow their pensions to be raided because TfL is being starved of funds by ministers.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bContrary to what the government would have people believe, the TfL pension fund is not gold plated \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it is well-managed, properly funded and proportionate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The DfT bailout already forced a pay freeze on our members \u00e2\u20ac\u201c their pensions must be left alone and Unite will use every means at its disposal to ensure this is the case.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe underground is the envy of metropolises the world over. Unfortunately, it is not safe under a Tory administration that cares more about the deals done in the city\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s financial centre than the people who rely on its public transport network.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bDespite being proved wrong countless times, the Conservative mantra of \u00e2\u20ac\u0098private good, public bad\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 means there is no doubt that ministers hold a long-term ambition of carving up TfL and handing it to their privateer mates.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhat better way to get the ball rolling than hiving off pensions so that TfL\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future running costs are reduced for private sector bidders?\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he asked.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>\u00c2\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><strong><em>\u00c2\u00a0By Ryan Fletcher <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Transport for London (TfL) pension review has raised fears that the government could have plans to privatise the London Underground, Unite said today (Tuesday 10 August).\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4602,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[270,252,238],"wps_subtitle":"TfL pension review raises privatisation fears for London Underground\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29725"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29727,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29725\/revisions\/29727"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}