SIGNALLERS MAKE PROGRESS IN NETWORK RAIL DISPUTE

B allots for more than 900 signallers and supervisors in the Great Northern and North Eastern areas have been called off by RMT following progress in the individual cases at the centre of the disputes. More than 50 signallers in the Lincoln area have already taken two days of strike action after Network Rail told a local operations manager with 33 years’ signalling experience that the Transfer Redundancy and Resettlement (PTR&R) agreement did not apply to him when his post was made redundant. In York, a local signalling operations manager has now been transferred according to the long-standing PTR&R agreement, which the company had previously refused to honour. In the Lincoln area new discussions are being held with the company over the breach of the long-standing agreement. RMT has also written to Network Rail’s Great Northern area to seek a clear undertaking that the company would not remove any person from a signalbox, crossing box or electronic control centre without agreement. RMT general secretary Bob Crow warned that unless Network Rail made this clear undertaking workplace ballots would be called at King’s Cross, Doncaster and other locations in the Great Northern area. He said that the PTR&R agreement was a cornerstone of members’ conditions, and the union would do what was necessary to defend it. Network Rail came under fire during the Lincoln area signallers’ strike following an apparently serious blunder by a Network Rail manager who worked a signal box which could have had catastrophic consequences. RMT has asked the Railways Inspectorate to investigate an incident at West Holmes box following the error that could have sent a passenger train on the Newark-Lincoln line through an engineering site at up to 70mph. A document seen by the union indicates that the time an engineering 'blockage' was supposedly given up on February 24 was entered on a safety-critical authorisation form the night before - more than eleven hours before the time indicated on the form. If the mistake had not been spotted by the experienced signaller who re-opened the box the following morning, and had the engineering work overrun, the line could have been re-opened to traffic with potentially fatal consequences. “Rather than throwing hastily trained managers into signal boxes Network Rail should be putting their efforts into settling a dispute that is entirely of the company’s own making,” Bob Crow said. RMTnews :: march 2008 :: www.rmt.org.uk 6 SIGNALLERS MAKE PROGRESS IN NETWORK RAIL DISPUTE New ballots to be called unless ‘clear undertaking’ given in Great Northern area U K coastguards took strike action for the first time in their history on March 6. The 24-hour strike involved up to 700 workers who are members of the Public and Commercial Services union. Workers at 19 search and rescue co-ordination centres are in dispute with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency over pay. The stoppage affected emergency calls and operations, but response teams were still sent out to emergency situations during the action. The PCS said that coastguards receive “poverty pay” and have called for a wage increase of £3,000 on top of their current base line of £14,000 a year. PCS pay co-ordinator Geoff Lewtas said: “It is a scandal, quite frankly, that an organisation that’s got such great importance as the fourth emergency service, is running its operation with its permanent staff paid on shoestring wages. “It’s because they are on poverty pay in many cases and because their pay isn’t on a level with workers in similar situations providing emergency services, such as the police, ambulance and fire,” he said. MCA management has acknowledged that the coastguards are underpaid and said it was not able to increase pay as it was bound by government rules on public sector pay. UK COASTGUARD STAFF STAGE FIRST EVER STRIKE ACTION STRIKE: Bob Crow joins striking signallers at Lincoln