Bus workers’ victory

RMT news – Essential reading for today ’s transport worker RMT bus drivers at Wilts and Dorset have won a major victory after threatening to strike over management undertaking driving duties. A strike ballot was suspended after the company agreed a solution designed to see managers drive buses only as a last resort. For several months RMT members had been denied opportunities for overtime and rest-day working, while managers and supervisors were boosting their own earnings by taking out buses on both stage-carriage and private-hire work. Management assurances that the practice would be confined to situations of last resort were consistently broken, angering members. The issue came to a head when the company said it would continue to tender for large-scale private-hire work and to use non-driving staff to cover the work, at overtime rates of pay. This triggered a strike ballot amongst incensed members at Salisbury and its outstations. “This is a great victory for our bus members and shows yet again what can be achieved by sticking together and fighting against a management attempting to undermine members’ conditions,” general secretary Bob Crow said. The deal involves an increase in the number of spare duties and a revised system of rest- day allocation, based on the system operating successfully at other depots. Volunteer sheets will be posted around two weeks in advance, inviting volunteers for rest-day working and for volunteers for call-outs, call- backs and split-duty overtime. The work will be allocated in the week before the relevant operations, with priority given to drivers who have worked the fewest rest days. Last-minute cover for sickness or traffic delays may be undertaken by non-regular drivers only if a regular driver cannot be found, but in such circumstances no fares collection would take place. RMT called for the PPP contract of Tube privateer Metronet to be suspended and its maintenance work taken back in-house after the company was found to have been the principal cause of the White City derailment last May. Metronet was found to have failed to comply fully with safety measures laid down by London Underground following last October’s Camden Town accident. “A company that fails to comply with explicit safety instructions put in place after one derailment and as a result causes another should not be allowed to continue operating on the network,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said. He said that serious questions must also be asked of London Underground itself – such as where is the new safety regime we were promised under the auspices of Transport Commissioner Bob Kiley? “After Camden Town and White City we called for speed restrictions to be put in place over all 42 sets of points identified as potentially dangerous, and now we expect LUL to take that call seriously. “We have always said that the PPP would lead to dangerous fragmentation and communications breakdown, and that is exactly what is happening,” Bob said. The union pointed out that Tube users expected their safety to be taken seriously, yet the private firms involved in the PPP were in it primarily to make money – the one thing that they had proved themselves to be good at. “We were lucky that there were no serious injuries at White City – now we need to see some action so that further preventable accidents do not take place,” the general secretary said. RMT recently achieved a significant victory for five ticket examiner members employed by GNER at Durham. The five were originally employed as Station Customer Service Assistants to sell and check tickets at barriers. In September 2003 it was agreed at GNER Company Council that they would have the same terms and conditions as on-train ticket examiners, which would entitle them to be paid commission whilst being on a lower basic salary. However, after they were given new contracts that changed their grade from Station CSA to Ticket Examiner, management said they would not be paid commission pending a full review of the ticket commission structure that had been requested by Company council represen- tatives. Company Council reps made it clear to the company that this was completely unacceptable. GNER had given our members new contracts on a lower basic salary and then withdrawn payment of commission without agreement. The union demanded that members be paid all outstanding commission. Management’s response was to initially delay and then to decline the claim. However, as a result of the persistence of the reps and the Regional Organiser, management finally recognised the justice of the claim and agreed to pay the outstanding commission as contracted, which amounted to several thousand pounds between the five members over a six-month period. Once again the importance of being a member of the RMT has been well and truly demonstrated. Wilts & Dorset members in the driving seat Just the ticket for GNER members Metronet contract should be suspended Hatfield criminal charges dropped CHARGES brought against three Railtrack executives in the wake of the Hatfield crash have been quashed. Old Bailey judge Justice Mackay allowed applications from the three – including former Railtrack chief executive Gerald Corbett, now chairman of Woolworths – that the charges should be dropped. Rail maintenance firm Balfour Beatty and several of its executives at the time of the rail crash in which four people died on October 17, 2000, still face various charges of manslaughter due to gross negligence and offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Existing corporate manslaughter laws are problematic because it requires prosecutors to prove the existence of a culpable “controlling mind” before any organization can be found guilty. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that this latest legal debacle underlined the urgent need for a specific corporate manslaughter law. “We still need a change in the law to ensure that executives who cause unnecessary and avoidable deaths are held to account,” he said. Attempted manslaughter prosecutions over the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster in 1989 that killed 193 and against Great Western Trains over the 1997 Southall rail crash that killed seven both failed. 7