WHY I JOINED RMT

RMTnews :: november 2007 :: www.rmt.org.uk 4 F ormer Jarvis rail maintenance welders have been in dispute with Network Rail since May this year over the company’s refusal to honour a commitment made by Jarvis to pay higher rates for additional skills. Jarvis agreed to settle the long-running dispute before the workers from Liverpool, Crewe and North Wales were brought back in-house by Network Rail. The welders have been working to rule for a number of weeks after waiting seven years for the issue to be resolved. However, the company has done nothing to reach a settlement while safety critical work may be compromised. Recently, welders from Sheffield and Doncaster have balloted for the same action and workers from Grimsby, Newcastle, Barnaby and Lincoln have shown interest in the escalating dispute. Welder Dave Edwards said that Network Rail had verbally agreed to continue the talks held with Jarvis. “When we tuped over to Network Rail our fellow workers in ultrasonics who had the same representation as us received their pay increase, but Network Rail then reneged on there verbal agreement,” he said. Assistant general secretary Mick Cash called on the company to pay the money due to welders. “There is a clear moral case for rewarding these workers for the skills they have and it is time to do the right thing and move on,” he said. R MT has won re- instatement for eight seafaring members employed by Stena Europe, Fishguard. The eight were dismissed by the company on charges of failing to join the ship and failure to take a breathalyzer test. Both charges were strenuously denied and members maintained that they were merely exercising what they believed was their right to be accompanied by a trade union official. Following an appeal hearing against the sackings and a ballot for industrial action it was agreed that certain policies needed to be revised and the eight were re- instated. RMT national officer Steve Todd said that this positive outcome was only brought about due to the perseverance of the union at local and national level. I joined RMT seven years ago whilst training for a CSA's job at King's Cross and I have not regretted it since. The reason I joined was because I felt then, as I do now, that RMT was the largest and most influential union on London Underground, representing each member equally, regardless of their grade, job or employer. I also feel that it's the only union that actively opposes PPP, scrapping of the Section 12 fire safety regulations, Ticket Office closures and other issues which directly or indirectly affects us all on the Underground. WELDERS SEEK JUSTICE WHY I JOINED RMT Name: Kevin Jackson Job: London Underground train operator UNIONS WIN RE-INSTATEMENT FOR WEXFORD EIGHT R MT has finally secured formal recognition for all Customer Service Manager grades employed by GNER. This follows RMT reaching agreement with GNER to incorporate Level 3 CSMs into the collective bargaining arrangements. Prior to this agreement, Level 3s had no collective negotiating rights and were part of the management “consultative” set up. However, before entering into a formal agreement, management wanted to ensure that RMT representation had the support of the Level 3 CSM staff themselves and proposed a referendum ballot to establish this. Of the 74 members of staff concerned no less than 66 of them were already RMT members. Therefore came as no surprise that the vote was 45 in favour of collective bargaining by RMT with only one vote against. RECOGNITION DEAL AT GNER