Midland Mainline uses anti-union laws

RMT news – Essential reading for today ’s transport worker THE CERTIFICATION Officer has rejected claims that there was any breach of RMT rules or the 1992 Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act in the conduct of the election for RMT president last year. In the ruling, the Certification Officer rejected seven complaints, which were jumped on by the anti-trade union press including The Times newspaper, by one of the losing candidates of alleged breaches of RMT rules in the election’s conduct. An eighth complaint was ruled to be outside the CO’s jurisdiction. The complaints were made after a letter from RMT general secretary Bob Crow was circulated with the election addresses of the candidates, on Certification Officer rejects RMT breach of rule allegations Freightliner exposed for “daylight robbery” FREIGHTLINER chiefs are to pocket £30 million between them by flogging off the firm they bought for just £5 million. Following the privati- sation of British Rail, bosses got £75 million of taxpayers’ money after they snapped it up. However, the firm, which transports containers and other materials across the country, pays its drivers less than £6 per hour. Assistant general secretary Mick Cash said that employees are forced to work 60 hours a week at all hours to make a decent wage. “Meanwhile we discover the bosses are busy lining their own pockets,” he said. Management own a 30 per cent stake worth nearly £30 million in the company and chief executive Alan Galley and finance boss Doug Downie will pocket £5 million each. RMT general secretary Bob Crow described the sting as “daylight robbery”. “Freightliner was built up at taxpayers’ expense, flogged off at a fraction of its real value and then still fed huge sums in public subsidy. “Now it is being sold on to make a handful of individuals £30 million richer,” he said. Labour MP and RMT parliamentary convenor John McDonnell said that the public were increasingly sickened by the obscene profits made out of the mess of rail privatisation. “This is another example of why we need to bring the industry back into public ownership,” he said. ABOVE: The Daily Mirror exposes Fat Cat rail executives RAIL operator Midland Mainline has used anti-union laws to block industrial action in a dispute over the safe operation of multiple-unit trains. The High Court made the decision last month to block the dispute on a technicality – despite a 90 per cent ‘yes’ vote for action among the 100 guards involved. The union is currently re- balloting the guards affected on whether they wish to take industrial action short of a strike. The dispute centres on the company’s instruction that multiple-unit trains with no connecting door should be operated with just a single guard aboard – even though in an emergency the guard would be cut off from the train’s second unit and unable to aid passengers. The court backed the company’s application that the union’s ballot for action was ‘tainted’ under anti-union legislation because guards had been refusing, on safety grounds, to operate such trains unless the inaccessible portion was ‘locked out’ of use. Despite repudiation by the union of any unofficial action, the court found against the union. “Once again these pernicious laws are being used to frustrate the democratic will of our members, who have voted by nine to one to take action for safety,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said. “These laws are nasty enough at the best of times, but the company has persuaded the court to adopt a particularly narrow and perverse interpretation which will give employers far more scope to claim that ballots are ‘tainted’ – and that has serious implications for the whole trade-union movement. “This dispute is about safety pure and simple, yet rather than deal with the issues the company has gone running to the courts to use the law as a battering ram against our members and the travelling public. “We cannot allow the safety of our members and the travelling public to be subordinated to cost-cutting,” Bob said. 7 BIAISED: How the anti-union media portrayed the story. Midland Mainline uses anti-union laws to block action legal advice, in order to correct material inaccuracies in the complainant’s election address. “The Certification Officer has exonerated the union and me as its general secretary of any wrong-doing in this matter,” Bob said.