draw subsidies from predominantly middle class commuters on the grounds that they are socially reg "There is no evidence that lowering fares would attract sufficient additional revenue to offset the loss of revenue says the report. Having driven the working class off the railways, the Government would seem to be trying to do the same to the tens of thousands not so rich middle class people dependent on rail transport.
Not surprisingly the rail union leaders have reacted with howls of horror. Already the rail service is faced with the threat of a two-thirds reduction in its total track mileage by 1981 and a cut in its workforce to under 100,000. But neither the rail unions, nor the other transport workers' unions, have done anything to prepare their membership for a struggle through building common links and developing a workers' plan for an integrated For ten years the rail drivers union ASLEF has been calling for an integrated transport policy -even supporting workers' control on the railways. But all this has meant in practice is a number of paid advertisements from Ray Buckton in Tribune No attempt was made to extend the joint executives campaign against the rail cuts into joint union committees in every rail depot demanding the opening of BR's books to reveal the extent of the planned cuts and prepare the fight against them. Instead, when Eastern Region drivers faced with new duty rosters took strike action, ASLE's executive refused to make the strikes official, while Sid Weighell of the NUR had already said that strikes against the cuts would be "bloody silly' With the Think Tank' report on the car industry looking for the destruction of another 150,000 jobs by 1984, and BR aiming to cut its present staff by nearly two thirds, the need is precisely for a workers plan for transport which defends jobs and provides the ser vice the working class wants. recent publication by Lucas shop stewards of an alternative plan for socially useful production for their particular combine shows the sort of thing that is needed Planning for transport is a much bigger task. But it is the only way that jobs will be defended, services improved and tae environment pro tected. Capitalism will destroy all three.