RMT press release, 8 January 2010 ...
RAIL UNION RMT today announced arrangements for a rally and lobby of parliament on Wednesday 27th January 2010 in the fight to stop the axing of nearly 1500 safety-critical maintenance jobs by Network Rail. A timetable for a national ballot for industrial action by rail maintenance staff will be confirmed shortly.
Click '1 attachment'/ file name to download this leaflet. Read the text below.
LUL have now put out a circular regarding our dispute and urging people to vote, so please take that advice and vote YES. It is very disappointing to have to ballot nearly 750 people covered by the signals framework agreement to get LUL to listen to us. They must still think that it is Christmas and we are the Turkey ready for carving up.
The Regional Council Executive endorsed this resolution on behalf of the Regional Council at its meeting on 9 February 2010.
This Regional Council has been informed that Diane Abbot MP supported the former Mayor Ken Livingstone’s policy to privatise the East London Line. Also she did not sign the Early Day Motion regarding the issue.
If this is true then Ms Abbot has broken the policy of this union and the principles of our Parliamentary Group.
This is London Underground's guidance on attendance during adverse weather conditions, issued on 17 December 2009. It is posted here for your information, not because RMT agrees with it!
=====
Guidance for attendance for all staff in London Underground following adverse weather conditions.
• Employees are required to make every effort to get to their place of work and must use (and be encouraged to use) every reasonable means to achieve this objective. It is their responsibility to get to work.
I've written the following article for 'Solidarity' newspaper ...
A decision by the PPP Arbiter in December may prove to be a fatal punch to private infrastructure company Tube Lines and the whole ‘Public-Private Partnership’ set-up on London Underground.
The New Labour government imposed the PPP at the very end of 2002, despite widespread opposition. PPP organised the Underground’s infrastructure into three groups of lines, and transferred them to private consortia known as Infracos, two to now-defunct Metronet, one – the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines – to Tube Lines.
Finsbury Park branch passed the following resolution at its Annual General Meeting, requesting an RMT Special General Meeting about legal services, and has submitted it to the Regional Council for support. For the union to call such an SGM, other branches also need to support it. Stratford no.1 branch has already voted to do so. The Regional Council Executive endorsed this resolution on behalf of the Regional Council at its meeting on 9 February 2010.
On 17 December, the PPP Arbiter published an important document, which may turn out to be a staging post in the collapse of Tube Lines and – following 2007’s similar collapse of Metronet – of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) itself.
It also contains information about issues of great concern to London Underground and TubeLines staff - including problems with the Jubilee line upgrade, pensions, the London Living Wage, cuts in stations refurbishments, "machine-room-less escalators", and engineering staff working across all lines.
As it is a very long and technical document, I have attempted to summarise and explain it here.
Following elections, the following members were elected to the stations safety council from Jan 1st 2010
Dave Phillips (Neasden Branch) Jason Dew (Finsbury park branch) Ross Marshall (Neasden Branch)
They will join Pat O'Brien on the council for a 3 year term of office.
Im sure everybody will join me in sending a massive thank you to the work of the 3 outgoing members.
Unjum Murza (Stratford Branch) Tony Gandolfi (Camden 3 Branch) Vik Parmar (Central Line west Branch)
They will be missed by the union and the 1000s of members they have supported over the past few years.
First faces a fine after being convicted of a health and safety "shambles" over the death of one of it's drivers.
Robert Cherry, 59, was crushed to death when he was trapped between two buses at a depot in Uxbridge belonging to Centrewest London, a subsidiary of First UK group. Robert had been collecting a can of water to top up his vehicle's engine when the gear stick of the bus in front slipped and the vehicle reversed into him. He was pinned between the first bus and the one behind, which was in turn thrown back into a third vehicle. He died at the scene of the accident.
(Updated with Ballot Results)
RMT General Grades Committee have decided to accept the LUL pay offer.
General Secretary, Bob Crow says "After giving careful consideration to the situation, the General Grades Committee has decided to accept the most recent offer in respect of the 2009 and 2010 pay increases and the associated improvements to conditions of service. This was a 1.5% increase from 1 April 2009 for one year and RPI + 0.5% or 0.5% whichever is the greater for year two."