Circular LUL/4/5 from RMT General Secretary Bob Crow

It is apparent that London Underground management has been deliberately victimising our representatives and activists for doing their job namely representing you and fighting to protect jobs and ensuring a staff presence in stations.

They have been trying to get over to the public, and staff who are not Union members, the ramifications of the Mayor’s broken promises and LUL management’s determination to push these cuts through. These cuts will see stations unstaffed leading to an increase in crime and the inability of customers to get all sorts of assistance be it ticketing, assistance for old or disabled passengers and much more.

So for undertaking legitimate trade union duties LUL tried to censor our representatives and worse still sacked three of them. Two of these three representatives applied to an Employment Tribunal for Interim Relief. To apply for Interim Relief you have to show that the main reason for your dismissal was a direct result of you undertaking your trade union duties, these cases are rarely successful but both our members won their application and are now being paid by LUL until their full tribunal case is heard. It is a disgrace that these hard working representatives were dismissed and I have written to LUL management demanding their immediate reinstatement taking into account the decision of the ET.

The London Transport Regional Council has called a public meeting on Thursday 17th February in defence of our sacked members and I would urge as many members as possible to attend. As it is a public meeting I would urge you to invite other like-minded friends and colleagues to attend with you.

We are continuing to seek media coverage of these injustices and are raising the issue with the TUC, both nationally and locally, seeking their support.

We are currently trying to arrange a meeting with representatives of our Parliamentary group and sympathetic members of the Greater London Assembly to discuss progressing this issue through political channels.

Finally, your General Grades Committee is seeking the views of branches and the Regional Council as to any further action needed and the matter will be placed back in front of the GGC in due course.

I will, of course, keep you advised of developments.