VOTE YES TO STRIKE ACTION

RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: february 2010 :: RMTnews 6 RMT is balloting Network Rail members for national industrial action against 1,500 threatened job cuts, the imposition of rosters and the watering down of safety. Mass meetings of workers’ affected by the cuts have been taking place up and down the country and Network Rail maintenance and signalling staff will begin receiving ballot papers at the same time as this magazine. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that plans to axe 1,500 maintenance jobs across the rail network was a reckless gamble with safety which would create the conditions for another Hatfield, Paddington, Potters Bar or Grayrigg disaster. “We saw under Railtrack the lethal consequences of cutting back on maintenance and Network Rail now want to turn the clock back to those dark days by forcing staff out of the door in order to hit budget targets. “It’s outrageous and we have no option but to ballot for action and I would urge members to vote Yes,” he said. Network Rail has refused to give further assurances about no compulsory redundancies beyond 2010 or give guarantees’ about capex work to be undertaken in future years by maintenance members. It has also refused to place potentially redundant members in permanent jobs within the maintenance organisation thereby offering no future job security and failed to provide details of further changes being planned by the company. Network Rail has also proposed making changes to the way in which T3 possessions are carried out by doing away with placing detonators at either end of a possession to protect track workers. This is about saving time, and therefore money, on setting up possessions – and RMT has told NR that it is unsafe and unacceptable. Inevitably, the onus for the safety of such possessions being transferred to signallers and if anything went wrong, it would be the signaller, who ended up in the dock on a manslaughter charge – not Iain Coucher or Peter Bennett. Network Rail is bent on imposing new rosters on signallers, effectively tearing up the 1994 restructuring agreement and 2001 JWP agreement. Network Rail has refused to provide assurances that it will comply with rostering parameters agreed between the union and the company and clearly intends to ignore the agreements. Network Rail has also been undermining the Promotion, Transfer, Redundancy and Resettlement (PTR&R) agreement – designed to protect members who find themselves displaced from their post. The company has made no secret of the fact that it would love to see PTR&R disappear in order to create a situation in which it can move people to wherever it wants, whenever it wants or, make people redundant without reference to procedure. Vote Yes to strike action. VOTE YES TO STRIKE ACTION Network Rail maintenance and signalling staff balloted for strike action against job cuts, imposition of rosters and other attacks on conditions R MT has called for an investigation into Network Rail’s maintenance failings on the West Coast Mainline after the latest in a series of overhead line failures halted train services in both directions. The union renewed the call for Network Rail to suspend cost-cutting plans that would lead to chaos and could precipitate a major rail disaster. The latest overhead line failure, at Berkhamsted, is the third in just three months and represents the shape of things to come if Network Rail goes ahead with its planned cuts. RMT general secretary Bob Crow reported that there were just three people on duty at the depot that covers Berkhamsted, and that the chaos was worsened by delays in getting skilled staff out to sort the problem “We know that Network Rail has been chipping away at staffing levels and wants to reduce the complement of permanent staff on overhead lines by a quarter. “Despite the £9 billion upgrade to the West Coast line there are still clearly major problems, yet Network Rail is aiming nearly half of its proposed job cuts at the route. “This is exactly the sort of chaos we have warned will be caused regularly if Network Rail goes ahead with its cash-driven cuts policy, and it must be stopped ,” Bob Crow said. RMT has pledged to fight devastating job cuts in Glasgow by Babcock Rail. The job cuts have been prompted by Network Rail’s plans to defer up to one-third of track renewal work to save money. In a profit statement, Babcock bosses confirmed that they are considering the possibility of closing the rail division, reducing it’s size or selling it off. The union warned that the job loss programme has already begun with over 260 jobs being axed in recent months. The cancellation of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link by the SNP administration in Scotland and a new wave of maintenance cutbacks being driven through by Network Rail has added to the sense of crisis in the industry. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said that with unemployment figures continuing to rise the threat to 1,600 engineering jobs at Babcock Rail is another massive potential body blow to UK industry. “We need urgent government intervention to protect what’s left of our industrial production capacity at companies like Babcock Rail and with the planned expansion and modernisation of the rail network the threat that any of these 1,600 workers could end up thrown on the dole is madness,” he said. ANOTHER OVERHEAD FAILURE ON WEST COAST MAINLINE RMT PLEDGES TO FIGHT BABCOCK RAIL JOB CUTS