BACK at the start of this year when we were getting back to work and facing up to the reality of a new Tory government with a whacking great majority, we had no idea what would be confronting us just a few months down the line. Our world has truly been turned upside down.

But some things don’t change and May Day remains the day when the international working class comes together to celebrate our movement and to stand together to face the challenges that lay ahead. And how massive are those challenges this year? 

Our movement is nothing if it isn’t resilient, adaptable and agile. We have had to display all of those strengths to the full over the past couple of months. At RMT I can safely say that we have rarely been busier. As the lockdown loomed we had to take steps to close our offices and move our operations out of the normal working environment whilst protecting the service to our members.

RMT’s priorities were clear from the off.  We had to use every tool at our disposal to protect the health, safety and livelihoods of our members. Communication has been absolutely key to that and throughout we have used every available platform to keep our members briefed, to steer them towards key resources and to ensure that they can reach out and draw down the help and support that they need.

Most employers have worked with us but there have been some that have sought to use the Covid-19 crisis as an opportunity to exploit the workforce and there have been others who have chosen to play fast and loose over ensuring that their staff get the full protection that they need. RMT has called out those employers at every turn and we have exposed their failures as leverage to force them back into line.

A perfect example is the cleaners working for Mitie on their Merseyrail contract. This company tried to use the current crisis to pull a pay deal that would have given the staff a pay rise backdated to July last year guaranteeing a minimum rate of £9 per hour, an important staging post on the route to the real living wage for these important members of the rail workforce. The pay rise had been hard fought for during a long, high-profile industrial and political campaign.

As soon as Mitie told us they were pulling the agreed deal we hit them hard using traditional and social media and drawing in heavyweight political support from the likes of the Merseyside mayor — the result was a hasty rethink and a welcome rapid reversal of their decision with our members now getting the money that they richly deserve and we will be back to get them onto the full living wage come the next pay round.

For RMT members, like so many other trade unionists, coronavirus presents a real and present danger in the workplace. Transport services have continued to run, albeit on reduced timetables, and the tragedy of transport worker deaths has been something that has hit all of us in the industry hard. It remains a scandal that we have had to fight so hard for adequate PPE and safe working practices for bus company employees and other staff. That fight goes on. 

On this May Day I want to pay tribute to the workers who have kept the energy supplies flowing, the freight moving, the buses running and the transport services to support our essential workers operational. They are a credit to this trade union, our movement and our country.

One thing is for sure, once it is proven as safe enough for us to move out of the lockdown and begin the process of moving back to some kind of normal operation things will never be the same again. 

If rail and other services can be taken over wholesale by the state to protect them during a crisis then they can be taken over on a permanent basis when that crisis subsides as a public service free from the grip of private speculation.  There must also be no more talk of austerity and our colleagues in health and social care should get the pay and the resources they have proven so publicly that they deserve. Their fight will be our fight.

Clapping our essential workers on a Thursday evening is fine and shows exactly where the public stand. But that support has to be transformed into a new deal for the whole country and the services and the staff that we value so dearly when this emergency eases. Let that message ring out loud and clear this May Day.

Mick Cash is general secretary of RMT.