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Posted by: Malcolm Povey on Jan 29, 2008 - 02:15 PM
TradeUnions
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There are a number of responses to the reality of Climate Change. One is to blame it on the individual, particularly the car driver and recommend that car drivers be priced off the roads through taxes and prohibitive car parking fees. This can be a divisive issue in workplaces where those cycling to work see car drivers as the enemy and support employers who wish to increase car parking fees. The following discussion is in the context of a debate within the University and College Union (UCU) regarding workplace parking fees.
I respond to this as someone without a car who commutes 22
miles to and from work by public transport and suffers as a result. My
standard of living is falling as a result of ridiculous rises in public
transport costs.
1. If an employer recruits a member of staff with a certain set of
conditions, such as car parking supplied to enable travel to work, then
denial of that car parking is a change of conditions of work. The UCU
exists to defend its members conditions and we do not make a virtue of
negotiating them away, on the contrary.
2. Market management of car travel through taxation etc is not an answer
to Climate Change in itself. Without a rational public transport policy
all the demand to increase the cost of car travel does is cut the wages
and increase the travel costs of the poorest who generally have the
worst travel to work conditions. The rich just shrug off these charges
and will continue to use their gas guzzlers, refuse to pay their taxes
and insist on increasing fares on public transport, whilst profiting
through their shareholding.
3. An effective response to Climate Change requires democratic public
planning, both nationally and internationally. Our employers have a duty
to ensure that effective public transport exists to transport every one
of their employees to and from work in a timely and economic way. This
is what the UCU should demand from the universities, not increased car
parking charges. If there was an effective public transport system, no
one in their right mind would drive up and down the M62 in Northern England every day which
is my alternative to catching the train.
Malcolm Povey
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