John McDonnell, convener of the RMT Parliamentary Group, has tabled an Early Day Motion regarding Transport Workers and the Swine Flu epidemic. Please support this EDM 1959 by asking your local MP to sign. The full text of the EDM can be found here.
The following resolution was carried unanimously the LU Engineering branch meeting of 18 August 2009 and forwarded to the union's General Grades Committee:
TUBE UNION RMT today welcomed a major breakthrough in an on-going dispute with London Underground which will see the company sticking to agreed policies on redundancies, protecting the futures of a thousand staff who had been identified as being at risk.
The dispute, which was at the heart of the 48 hour tube strike earlier this year, has led to long hours of direct negotiation both face to face and through ACAS.
Bob Crow RMT general secretary said today:
Circular No. IR/242/09
RATES OF PAY AND CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 2009, REDUNDANCIES AND BREACH OF AGREEMENTS – LUL
As you would have been made aware by email, text and press announcements, considerable progress has been made towards resolving the current dispute situation on LUL. I am pleased to report that there has been movement in respect of jobs, pay and other matters and the purpose of this circular is to give further details.
Jobs
At our April meeting, the London Transport Regional Council past three resolutions about our jobs / pay / justice dispute. Unfortunately, the General Secretary refused to table two of these - those entitled Revised pay offer and Rank-and-file members be heard - to the Council of Executives. The Executive then delayed discussing our appeal against this refusal until it was too late to make any difference, and when it did decide, upheld the General Secretary's decision and would not let itself look at the resolutions!
I met with I.S.S. management on Thursday 13th August to discuss the £550,000 savings that Metronet wish them to make.
1. I.S.S. guaranteed that no I.S.S employees would be made redundant. All redundancies would come from agency staff.
2. Where possible existing I.S.S. staff would be used to cover all the needed positions in workplaces.
I am pleased to announce that all RMT members facing compulsory redundancy have now been given or will be offered jobs. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone of you who showed steadfast support for your colleagues who were at risk of being made unemployed. In particular I would like to thank all reps activists and those who manned the picket lines that made our forty eight hour dispute a huge success.
On the Wednesday morning of RMT's AGM, we started off not knowing who the people we were introducing actually were. We watched a film called 'In the Name of the Father', and at the end of the film, there was complete silence, after we had witnessed what the Guildford Four had been through in 1970.
The following guest speakers addressed the AGM:
Present: Carol Foster, Unjum Mirza, Linda Wiles, Adrian Rowe, Josie Toussaint-Pinnock, Pat O'Brien, Vaughan Thomas, Janine Booth, Dean O'Hanlon, Micky Hyde, Clara Osagiede, Dave Rayfield In attendance: Steve Hedley (Regional Organiser) Apologies for absence: Neil Hodgson, Les Bruty, Andy Izard, Mick Crossey, Becky Crocker, Chris Tugwell, Andy LIttlechild, Brian Munro, Paul Rutland, Tony Gandolfi, Olly New, Kim Axford, Clive Protheroe, Steve Reeley, Bjorn Bradshaw Murray, Paul Geer, Peter Sheridan, Les Sime
RECRUITMENT AND ORGANISATION
Dave Rayfield reported: