London Underground Ltd

33 RMT London Underground “Trainpeople” staff – who face the prospect of dismissal this week - took their demo right to the heart of the company that treated them so appallingly today.

The sacked workers and their supporters were at St James Park station on Tuesday 15th January at 8am where they set up a soup kitchen to highlight their plight and build public and political support for their fight for jobs and justice.

From General Secretary Bob Crow

In my circular No NP/185/12 dated 10th August 2012 (Sick Workers and Annual Leave Ref: LA/185/12) I set out members’ entitlement to receive payment or carry over their leave entitlement where they had been unable to take this due to illness.

This was as a result of the decision of the Court of Appeal that, regardless of whether a worker is employed by a public or private employer, if a worker is unable or unwilling to take the four weeks’ annual leave conferred by regulation 13 of the Working Time Regulations owing to sickness (i) he or she must be allowed to take it at another time

TUBE UNION RMT said today that it is to ballot all staff working on London Underground’s “Trainpeople” agency contract for strike action over the termination of a deal which will dump dozens of staff on the dole and which makes a mockery of regulations which were supposed to protect the employment rights of agency staff.

Today, RMT London Underground “Trainpeople” staff – who face the prospect of dismissal this week - are taking their demo right to the heart of the company that treated them so appallingly this Tuesday.

London Underground inherited a contract with the Trainpeople agency from Silverlink in 2007. In breach of agreements with unions, for five years LU continued to use agency staff in LU uniform while Trainpeople paid them as little as £6.75 per hour. Trainpeople staff joined RMT and organised for equal rights with permanent staff as stipulated in the 2010 Agency Worker Regulations. Then, without warning, LU terminated its contract with the Trainpeople Agency a year early!

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33 RMT Members Sacked by Trainpeople Agency
On the 19th December 2012, all 33 Trainpeople agency staff working on the Wembley Central group received an early Christmas present. Trainpeople informed them that their contract with London Underground would be terminated on the 16th January, with no further work on the stations after that. This allowed them only four weeks to find new jobs over Christmas, some had worked on stations for over five years.

We note the correspondence from TfL, and instruct the General Secretary to place this matter back in front of us once it has been discussed at TfL Company Council and/or when the legal advice we sought is received.

London Transport Regional Council and TfL no.1 branch to be advised.

We note the report from our Regional Organiser, attaching a report from our LU Trains Upgrades representatives.

We and our LU trains representatives are concerned that London Underground Ltd may be using the Upgrades set-up to bypass the established Machinery of Negotiation and Consultation. It is not acceptable to us for the employer to discuss all matters concerning the upgrades of three lines with one Upgrades rep to the exclusion of local representatives.

We note that further discussions have taken place to arrange synchronisation with ASLEF for the Bakerloo line action. We therefore instruct the General Secretary to cancel our industrial action on the Bakerloo line only starting at 00:01 on Thursday 10 January and to begin the action instead at 00:01 on Tuesday 15 January. The industrial action remains the same as in our previous instruction and is to run until further notice; and the timing of the industrial action on the Central line remains unchanged.

Central Lines trains were non stopping at Oxford Circus Station this Monday as plaster fell from the ceiling. Fortunately nobody was hurt but disruption lasted over an hour during the morning peak.

RMT's general Secretary Bob Crow said "RMT has warned repeatedly about the impact of maintenance cuts and specifically the widening of schedules from a 14-day to a 28-day cycle."

This comes on the same day as a Central Line train was taken out of service having over run a platform due to a suspected brake fault.