Pay

Strike action by Initial cleaners at St Pancras International kicked off at 6am this morning with pickets out in force and rail union RMT reporting fantastic support from the public in the fight against poverty pay. Around seventy pickets and supporters have brought horns, drums and a carnival atmosphere to the London Eurostar terminal.

The workers have not had a pay increase for maintaining the opulent Eurostar terminal in four years and have been offered a pathetic 13 p taking them to £ 6.76 an hour, miles short of Boris Johnsons London living wage of £8.30 an hour.

RAIL UNION RMT today announced the end a pay dispute involving OCS cleaners working on the Eurostar contract after a new deal secured the union’s interim objective of getting all staff onto a minimum rate of £8 per hour by the autumn of this year.

A series of incremental increases under the package will say the minimum rate of pay rise from £7.40 an hour to £8.00 per hour by November - an increase of around 8% on the basic.

RAIL UNION RMT confirmed today that it has secured a £500 Olympics and Paralympics payment for Virgin Rail staff as part of a package which will also see wages and allowances rise by 4.6% or £950 (whichever is the greater) from April this year and a £500 flat rate payment for all staff covered by collective agreements for additional pressures on services throughout the Olympics period.

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the response from ASLEF to our letter, and are pleased that ASLEF agrees to seek a joint approach to achieving the best possible offer from London Underground for Olympic working. We instruct the General Secretary to explore the possibility of a joint meeting with ASLEF, TSSA and Unite to pursue this.

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:

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 throughout 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:

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 offer from London Underground to operational staff of:

• £100 depending on meeting ’Customer Satisfaction Survey’ targets
• £15 per shift during the Games only (total of 4 weeks) to reflect changed working patterns. The target includes ‘staff availability’ on an Underground system which has seen dramatic staffing cuts over recent years.

We reject this derisory, inadequate offer on the following grounds: