Seeing red

RMT news – Strike action MORE THAN 7,500 RMT members at Network Rail are to strike on June 29 after the company repeated its refusal to negotiate on pensions. Another 7,500 RMT members at London Underground, Metronet BCV and Metronet SSL are to take action for 24 hours at the same time following the failure of talks with the three companies to produce agreement on pay and conditions. All the action being taken is designed to prevent the development of two-tier workforces on the Tube and on the rail network. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that although the disputes with these companies were separate and each can and will be eventually settled individually, the executive had decided to call all the workers out on the same day to maximise the impact of the action and concentrate the minds of the employers. Network Rail The union’s negotiating committee said that the ballot for industrial action at Network Rail had brought the company to the negotiating table, but on pensions they simply sat there with their arms folded. “The company belatedly accepted that our pensions are a suitable area for negotiation, but if their offer to set up a pensions forum is to mean anything at all, it must be accompanied by flexibility and a willingness to negotiate,” Bob Crow said. The RMT negotiating team had made several positive and flexible offers – including moving this year’s pay anniversary date and forgoing a proportion of this year’s bonuses – in order to keep the final-salary pension scheme open, but the company refused to listen to them. Bob said that closing the pension scheme had become pure dogma: it would cost £4 million to keep the fund open this year, but the bonuses will cost £16 million. “RMT reps around the country have had a chance to weigh up the company’s offer, and the overwhelming response was one of anger at the failure to respond to our members’ concern over their right to dignity and security in retirement. “They have also been angered by the company’s dishonest assertion that only new employees will be affected by the closure of the pension scheme. “The company knows that is not true, and it is disgraceful that they should try to convince our members or the public that it is,” he said. Anger among RMT members intensified after Network Rail executives gave themselves huge bonuses of £350,000 – worth 20 per cent of their six-figure salaries – despite missing punctuality targets and one in five trains continuing to run late. “Their decision to go ahead with awarding themselves telephone-number bonuses for ‘financial efficiency’ will be seen by thousands of loyal NR employees as a grubby reward for pulling the plug on their decent pension scheme,” Bob said. London Underground RMT members at London Underground, Metronet BCV and Metronet SSL are to strike from 18.30 Tuesday June 29 following the failure of talks with the three companies to produce agreement on pay and conditions. There will also be a seven-day overtime ban at Metronet beginning from June 29. “Despite our best efforts, talks with both LUL and Metronet have got us nowhere fast, and our members are now fed up with being messed around,” Bob Crow said. “We have bent over backwards to keep talks going and to leave the door open to a long-term deal, but the employers appear not to be taking the talks seriously at all,” he said. He said that the union wanted a date for the implementation of a 35-hour week and a date for the start of a four-day week, and we want serious progress on pay. “We will not accept the destruction of hard-won working conditions, and we will not accept the creation of a two-tier workforce,” he said. RMT suspended action scheduled for June 10 on LUL after emergency talks led to further detailed exchanges but the company continued with its intransigent attitude. RMT has attempted to avert the possibility of action and the union is keenly aware of the losses incurred. However, there comes a time when there is no option but to call on members to take strike action and that time has now come. At the same time as fat cat directors are reaping the rewards of privatisation in the form of huge, unearned bonuses; the workers are treated with low pay offers and the creation of a two-tiered workforce that will gradually destroy proper working conditions for all. London regional organiser Bobby Law urged members to support the union and your colleagues in this demonstration of RMT’s determination to secure a decent deal in this and coming years. “Let’s be sure we turn the mandate we have for action into a solid strike which will bring these companies back to the respective negotiating tables with sensible and honourable offers,” he said. Together we can win! Network Rail and London Underground RMT members are to take 24-hour strike action from 18:30 on Tuesday June 29. 11