TUBE STRIKE SOLID

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: june 2009 :: RMTnews 4 R MT members on London Underground held a solid 48 hour strike this month after management failed to ratify a last-minute deal which would have halted industrial action. For eight days after the strike action was declared, London Underground management sat back and did nothing. Then on Friday June 5 – with the strike due to begin the following Tuesday – they finally came to the negotiating table. As talks continued on Monday and Tuesday the following week it appeared that enough headway had been made to avoid the strike action that members had voted for in a ballot. At 6pm on the Tuesday, after 17 hours of talks and with just one hour to go before the strik e was due to begin, RMT negotiators agreed to go back to the General Grades Committee immediately to suspend the industrial action on the basis that: • There had been a revised offer on a two-year or four- year pay deal which could be taken back to the members. • Headway was also made on the abuse of disciplinary procedures by management with agreement that ACAS would look at seven outstanding cases. • On sickness procedures the agreed 26 weeks maximum warning would be adhered to and a trade union representative would be present at interviews. • There would be no compulsory redundancies of Metronet workers that are brought back into LUL, and all other LUL members. With an initial agreement signed by general secretary Bob Crow it appeared that at the 11th hour the strike would be called off. Then, at 6.35pm, while awaiting the final typed document management announced that they had made a phone call and the deal was now off. Who the phone call was made to, they never said. Andrew Dunsmore MP pointed the finger of suspicion at the mayor of London, Boris Johnson,“…there’s a real suspicion that the Mayor of London’s fingers are all over the provocation of this dispute,” he said in the House of Commons. Former mayor of London Ken Livingstone wrote in The Times on the issue of compulsory redundancies for Metronet workers. He said that when he was mayor he had given a written guarantee that after the return of Metronet staff to the public sector there would be no redundancies. “My guarantee of no redundancies merely carried on the commitments given by the Labour government when it transferred these workers to Metronet. The Mayor cannot be surprised if the union feels betrayed,” Mr Livingstone said. With no agreement reached RMT remains in dispute with LUL. Bob Crow said: “what we want is a negotiated settlement without the interference of politicians. Agreement can be reached if management sit down and negotiate honestly”. TUBE STRIKE SOLID LUL management pull deal at last minute Young members lead the picket at Leyton signals depot