RMT members across the country are fighting privatisation, jobs cuts and threats to safety and these battles have intensified since the election in May for obvious reasons.

The new Tory regime is not only encouraging employers to attack workers — it is bringing in a raft of anti-trade union laws to tie the hands of anyone that wants to defend them.

We know that these brutal new anti-union laws are specifically targeted at workers in the transport sector who have shown in recent months that they have the guts to stand up and fight for jobs, pay, services and safety.

The response of this government mirrors the actions of hard-right regimes throughout history — shackle the unions, criminalise their members and use a raft of new laws to try to bankrupt workers’ organisations.

It is not lost on us that this legislation has been tabled just a few days before we celebrate the Tolpuddle Martyrs at their annual festival — a group of Dorset farm labourers criminalised and ‎exiled for daring to organise a union.

The trade union movement must unite to fight this brutal assault on the most basic of human rights and that campaign will be taken into the communities who stand to lose access to safe and reliable services as this noose of the anti-union laws is twisted round our necks.

We have a number disputes arising out of this new onslaught.

First Great Western has refused point-blank to give same assurances as East Coast over the introduction of the new Hitachi Inter-City trains fleet on jobs, services and safety.

RMT is seeking to keep a safety-competent guard and buffet car facilities on every train and ensure that the maintenance of new rolling stock remains in-house as well as no job losses.

RMT members at Caledonian MacBrayne Scottish lifeline ferries voted by 92 per cent for strike action on a 60 per cent turnout against attacks on pensions and collective bargaining which are under threat due to the Scottish government pressing ahead with a tendering process that nobody wants.

Tube workers are about to take another round of strike action in the ongoing dispute ‎over night running, the imposition of the rosters from hell and the destruction of any semblance of work-life balance and their determination remains rock solid.

Workers in all grades are furious at the attempt to rip up long-standing agreements in an effort to bulldoze through these wholly unacceptable new working patterns.

RMT also remains in dispute over the parallel issue of the axing of 850 station staff jobs, cuts which make a mockery of the safe delivery of the night Tube in just a few weeks’ time.

Following another clear vote for strike action at Network Rail the company realised that its plans for a pay cut for our members were just not acceptable.

It cannot be understated just how clear the will of RMT members to take industrial action was to achieving this improved offer.

This proposal will mean members get two years of consolidated pay increases and a two-year no compulsory redundancy guarantee.

Considering at the start Network Rail stated members would have to sell off terms and conditions in order to get a pay rise and refused to guarantee no redundancies, it is clear RMT has forced Network Rail to move its position massively.

In other good news RMT has won recognition for bus workers on a greenfield site in King’s Lynn employed by Norfolk Green.

RMT will support and represent our members whatever grade of transport or energy worker and the message is: we are not going away.

The ongoing scandal surrounding the Dutch state railways subsidiary Abellio, which has rail contracts on the Anglia, Northern and Scotrail franchises, has once more lifted the lid on the corruption endemic in the private sector.

The chief executive of Dutch Railways has resigned over a new contract to provide trains in the Netherlands, with reports of dawn raids on Dutch Railways and the Dutch government questioning how the company and some of its senior officials have been operating.

RMT has written to the Westminster and Scottish governments calling for a full inquiry into this mess and raised concerns over the franchising system.

It is also no surprise to RMT that in its first month of private operation the performance of the East Coast Main Line has declined compared to when it was under public ownership.

These figures again demonstrate this privatisation was based on right-wing, Thatcherite ideology and an act of industrial vandalism that smashed apart Britain’s most successful rail company for just one reason — it was publicly owned.

The Tories may huff and puff about the role trade unions play in society but we will still be here long after this lot have been kicked out of office and, as far as I am concerned, the sooner the better.

• Mick Cash is general secretary of RMT.