On Thursday's edition of BBC London, during an item about the £2500 Olympic Bonus for Docklands Light Railway workers the Fire brigades' Union was incorrectly quoted as saying "The Fire Brigades Union has told us tonight that they think this deal is unfair.”

The FBU was quick to correct the misquote issuing a statement to all their members:

STRIKES BY some 150 cleaners on three contracts across the Channel tunnel network have come a step closer after RMT members voted by overwhelming margins for industrial action in a bid to raise appallingly low pay levels.

The union has demanded fresh talks with subcontracting employers OCS and Initial after workers on the OCS Eurostar contract and Initial’s Eurostar and the Network Rail Channel tunnel rail link contracts endorsed action with only two votes cast against.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said:

Stations and Revenue Control Safety Council
Staff side

General Update

Jan 2012

If you're logged in to the site you can download the original document here.

General Update

Aftermath of Person under train incidents-storage of bodies.

Following on from consultation on this matter, we attended a meeting on 12th Jan.

LTRC RESOLUTIONS
You can read Council of Executives decisions relevant to our region here

• Request for support for TUSC in GLA election - Executive decision here
• Affiliation to 17-24-30.org - Executive decision here
• AWL website - Exexcutive decision here
• Olympics, cleaners - Executive decision here
  

The Triangle Benefit Gigs are being held to support The Triangle Adventure Playground in Oval, which is fighting to stay open after its council grant was cut.

The second of two nights which will see Jamm come alive with some of the UKs biggest artists on Saturday 28th of January, 8pm to 6am.

Brixton Jamm is promoting the gig and their website and describes the value of the playground facing closure:

"Opened in 1957, the Triangle Adventure Playground is the oldest playground of its kind in London and a fully functioning playground costs £111,784 per annum to run.

From General Secretary Bob Crow

The TUC is dedicating this year’s Workers’ Memorial Day, Saturday 28th April, to a Day of Action to defend Health and Safety. They are producing a series of bulletins that will assist reps and activists to organise for the day with important discussion topics. The first two ‘Defending Regulation’ and ‘The Need for Enforcement’ are available online now. (see below)

Transport union RMT said today that it has secured a ground breaking Olympics pay deal on DLR worth £2500 made up of a guaranteed attendance payment of £900 and guaranteed overtime payments for all staff throught the olympics and paralympics period.

The agreement is constructed as follows:

• £900 attendance bonus, paid at £100 per week over a 9-week period for all staff in every grade.∙
• Time +¾ for any hour worked on overtime throughout the 9-week period with a guaranteed minimum 5 hours per week, 45 hours over the 9 week period, for all staff in every grade.

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the offer from Serco Docklands, as follows:
• £900 attendance bonus, paid at £100 per week over a 9-week period for all staff in every grade.
• Time +¾ for any hour worked on overtime throughout the 9-week period with a guaranteed minimum 5 hours per week, 45 hours over the 9 week period, for all staff in every grade.
• Any grade that does not have an Olympic impact will be given ‘first refusal’ in areas such as crowd control should they wish to carry out this work.

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the new, slightly improved offer from London Underground of:

• £100 depending on meeting ‘Customer Satisfaction Survey’ targets
• £20 per shift worked (including those on alternative duties or off sick due to assault) during the Games only (4 weeks)

This does not address most of our reasons for rejecting the previous offer, and remains unacceptable because:

• The money offered is not an adequate reward for our members.
• The £100 will not be paid unless the targets are met.
  

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the legal advice received on this matter.

While we are disappointed that our advisers believe that there is no legal avenue to compel London Underground to allow trade union representatives to accompany members at Rainbow Attendance Review meetings, we welcome the advice that it may be possible to pursue legal claims arising from London Underground Ltd’s apparent unilateral change to its attendance policy.

We therefore instruct the General Secretary to:

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the correspondence from our Bakerloo branch, and the report now received from our lead officer on talks with London Underground about the use of agency and security staff, at which our representatives pressed the company to replace the use of agency staff and security guards with permanent, directly-employed jobs on LU’s ex-Silverlink stations.

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note that London Underground intends to count partially-trained Incident Customer Service Assistants towards minimum staffing numbers on stations, despite the fact that these ICSAs are not fully trained and qualified in the Customer Service Assistant (CSA) role, and are in fact not station staff at all, but staff in other (mainly administration) grades given a brief training course to carry out additional duties on stations.

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the proposal from Tube Lines to extend the current 3-year pay deal for a further 2 years, increasing wages by RPI+0.5% (minimum 2%) from 1 April 2013 and again from 1 April 2014.

We instruct the General Secretary to obtain a report on the views of our lead officer, representatives, branches and members about this proposal, and to place this report in front of us by 31 January.

London Transport Regional Council and branches to be advised.

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the report from our Regional Organiser outlining our representatives’ concerns about lack on consultation about the planned transfer of SSR and Piccadilly Line service control to a new control centre at Hammersmith. We note that our Regional Organiser has called a meeting open to all service control members on 31 January.

We instruct the General Secretary to:

• obtain a report of the Joint Working Party meeting due to take place on 19 January;

I'm a ULR for TfL No.1 branch.

I'm working on a project to celebrate World Book Day and need the help of trade union members and employees of TfL that are authors of published books to help with the project.

As part of the ongoing campaign against the McNulty Report the union is organising a further campaigning day of action on Thursday 2nd February.

The intention is that we again distribute campaign postcards during the morning rush hour to passengers at stations throughout the country.

The last day of action proved very successful. We managed to reach fifty stations around the country with a very supportive response and passengers have returned a massive number of cards to their MPs.

Ballyshannon by Albert Bridge

We are holding an urgent meeting for all service control staff affected by Hammersmith SCC on Tuesday, 31st January from 12.00 until 16.00

The meeting will be held at Conference Room 1, RMT Headquarters, Unity House, 39 Chalton Street, NW1 1JD. The closest tubes are Euston and Kings Cross. (Map.)

from General Secretary Bob Crow - TFL (RT/14/2)

Further to my circular dated 14th December (IR/608/11) I write to update branches on the TfL scheme to introduce Identifier tags from March 2012 for all Taxi driver members (Taxis and Private hire).This would distinguish between those drivers licensed for hire in all of Metropolitan London (green badge) and those who were licensed for particular sectors outside the centre (yellow badge). Yellow badge drivers might be typically licensed for the London Boroughs of Redbridge, Greenwich, Merton, Harrow, Hillingdon and so on.

We are holding an informal meet in London to discuss LGBT issues in the RMT and beyond. Lets make a plan for how to move LGBT issues forward in 2012.

WHERE: We'll meet up in one of the comfortable foyer spaces in the Royal Festival Hall.

DIRECTIONS: The Royal Festival Hall stands at the heart of Southbank Centre complex on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge.
Nearest underground stations: Waterloo (Bakerloo, Northern, Jubilee and Waterloo and City lines)Embankment (Circle and District lines)

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We instruct the General Secretary to place in front of us a report on the status of claims and offers in respect of cleaner members in the London Transport region as soon as practical.

London Transport Regional Council and branches to be advised.