Rail unions’ £66m war chest – no wonder they can hold UK to ransom!
RAIL unions have amassed a £66million war chest that will help bankroll further strike misery set to blight passengers from today.
The size of the financial reserves held by the RMT and Aslef unions suggests they have the resources to fight a lengthy nationwide battle with rail companies against the introduction of driver-only trains.
Striking Southern Rail guards will get £60 a day from the RMT to stay off work from today until Monday, and then during a six-day strike from January 9.
The RMT has property and shares totalling £53million, while the drivers’ union Aslef – which is joining the six-day walkout, forcing a shutdown of the company’s services – owns £13million of assets.
It is feared the unions’ huge reserves and the wealth of Southern Rail, whose parent company is Govia Thameslink Railway, means both sides will be able to dig in their heels and continue the dispute for months, if not years.
There are also concerns that the industrial action could spread to other rail firms where driver- only trains are planned, such as Merseyrail.
The RMT and Aslef say driver- only trains, on which drivers rather than guards operate doors, will affect safety.
They also claim they will result in the loss of train guards despite Southern’s insistence that jobs are guaranteed and staff would remain on board to check tickets and help the public.
The Conservative MP for Arundel and South Downs, Nick Herbert, said last night: ‘Commuters are losing income and even their jobs because of this action while wealthy unions play the very capitalist system that their hard-Left leaders say they want to bring down. The union leaders’ real motivation for this unjustifiable strike is political.’
His Tory colleague Chris Philp, the MP for Croydon South, added: ‘Passengers will be horrified that these militant unions will be inflicting misery while sitting pretty on fat-cat salaries and huge reserves.’
The RMT’s £32million property portfolio includes an £18million block of luxury flats in Clapham, South London.
The union’s Maritime House in Clapham Old Town contains 31 flats worth around £500,000 each and several office spaces. The RMT – whose general secretary Mick Cash earned £143,000 last year – lets spaces in the building to tenants.
The union also owns its £8million headquarters in London, sandwiched between Euston station and the exclusive British Renais- sance Hotel. The RMT made £577,000 in rent from its four properties last year.
And despite the union’s attacks on City fat cats, it owns hundreds of thousands of shares in banks and top firms, including £266,000 in BP, £ 109,000 in Barclays and £378,000 in GlaxoSmithKline.
The RMT’s stock market portfolio amounts to £17.6million and includes six-figure holdings in 65 other blue-chip companies includ- ing firms such as Vodafone and British American Tobacco, which have been accused of moving profits abroad to avoid tax.
It is with such reserves that the RMT can give 400 conductors on Southern a daily tax-free strike allowance equivalent to a gross annual salary of more than £18,000.
Aslef is understood not to be making strike payments during the sixday walkout, but Southern’s drivers earn an annual base rate of £49,660 for a four-day, 35-hour week. Average pay in the UK is £27,200.
The drivers’ union – whose general secretary, Mick Whelan, was paid £128,126 last year – has a property empire worth £10.5million across London and in Cambridge. Its seven properties include its £7million head office in Farringdon, central London, where it earned more than £100,000 in rent last year.
Aslef, which made £171,000 from its investments in 2015, has a stock market portfolio worth £1.7million. Its accounts do not reveal where these investments are held.
Earlier this year, Mr Whelan threatened the Government with ‘ten years of industrial action’.
The RMT, whose assets fall to £47.6million minus liabilities, said: ‘The union has successfully managed its finances to generate surplus funds that have been invested in property and shares to generate income for the union to use in funding Orphan Fund payments, hardship payments and other benefits to its members.’
Aslef, whose assets fall to £9.7million after liabilities, said: ‘Our assets have been accumulated over the last 136 years... The union has independent elected trustees and is audited independently annually.’
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