At a well attended meeting of the Neasden branch, RMT members from the Willesden Green group voiced their disgust and anger at the bullying, intimidation and complete lack of duty of care bestowed upon them by their GSM.
Steve Hedley and I buttonholed senior LU Managers today about their policy on the heavy snowfall last Monday. The radio and TV advised everyone not to travel and TfL cancelled the buses on safety grounds. Quite rightly so.
But now LUL managers have started deducting pay and leave from staff who couldn't get in. So they stop people getting in, then fine them! Has the left hand knowledge of what the right hand is up to?
Arnos Grove driver, Zak Khan, harshly sacked last month after having a SPAD last October, has had his appeal decision deferred, not once, but twice. At his appeal hearing on 3rd February, Zak’s rep, Dean O’Hanlon, pointed out the many points which the original disciplinary panel skipped over, along with new evidence, and made a strong case for Zak’s reinstatement. Appeal Chairman, Nick Shaw, listened to the points made, before announcing that he was not going to make his decision immediately; the appeal would now be reconvened at 1530 on Friday 6th February.
The dastardly attacks on our cleaning grade activists by ISS, the largest of the cleaning companies, intensified throughout January. Mary Boakye, our dedicated rep at Northumberland Park depot, was wrongly sacked following an accident at work in October, reinstated and then sacked again at a hearing on December 9th. Mary had an appeal hearing at the ISS head office on January 8th. At the same time the secretary of the cleaning grades committee, Clara Osagiede, was facing a trumped up charge of going home early after representing a member.
The following collective grievance will be presented to LUL management tomorrow (Friday 6 February). To add your name to it, please contact Janine Booth either by email or by text to 07748-760261 TODAY (Thursday).
COLLECTIVE GRIEVANCE - NON-ATTENDANCE TO WORK DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS
We the under-named submit this collective grievance arising from our inability to attend work on Monday 2 February due to adverse weather conditions.
TFL/LUL intend to cut 1,000 jobs. RMT is kicking off our fightback against this on Wednesday 11 February with a protest outside the building where both LUL management and many of the workers who may be affected are based.
We will be meeting outside St James Park tube station at 07:30 am to demonstrate outside 55 Broadway.
A leaflet advertising the protest is attached. Please download and distribute it.
Click on the attachment below to see the February 2009 edition of Monthly News:
1. Thousands of job losses are being proposed by LUL/TfL. We are attending another meeting tomorrow to get more details. The RMT HAS A VERY CLEAR POSITION WE WILL CAMPAIGN AGAINST ALL JOB CUTS AND BALLOT OUR MEMBERS IF COMPULSORY REDUNDANCY IS FORCED ON PEOPLE.
In the meantime we are calling on you all to support a protest outside LUL HQ, 55 Broadway (ST James Park station) on Wednesday 11th February at 7.30am to demand that no jobs are cut.
2. We are meeting with Gerry Duffy to discuss levels of representation for drivers, SRT, service control, King's Cross station.
Here is LUL's guidance for staff who couldn't get to work because of the snow.
Guidance for attendance for all Operational Staff in LU following the adverse weather conditions.
Employees are required to make every effort to get to their place of work and should always be encouraged to use every reasonable means to achieve this objective. It is their responsibility to get to work.
RMT press release, issued today
THE EXTREME weather that has played havoc with Britain’s transport system has underlined the failings of a fragmented rail network and the folly of the long-term reduction in the number of front-line staff, the country’s biggest rail union said today.
As staff struggled to maintain services in worsening weather conditions, RMT contrasted the commitment of front-line workers with train-operating companies that have chipped away at staffing levels since privatisation to boost profits.