NO TO CASUALISATION

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: june 2011 :: RMTnews 10 E ngineering grades conference meeting in Rugby condemned Network Rail for allowing rail renewal companies to impose mass casualisation of staff after making many rail workers redundant. Dai Hobbes, Newport Rail branch, said that Amey/Colas management had told staff that the companies no longer wanted to employ workers and just wanted to bring in agency staff because it was cheaper. “They said that this was not practical so they intended to cut 60 per cent of Amey/Colas staff. “Similar things are happening at Babcocks and Balfour and we all know what happened to our brothers and sisters at Jarvis,” he said. He said that these companies had become reliant on agency workers and the Amey/Colas joint venture had taken on two McGinley’s gangs and a gang of Sky Blue workers in South Wales and the Bristol Area alone. “Surely it cannot be right that they can lay off staff while there is enough work around to keep them employed only for the companies to bring in casual labour?” he said. He said that work was being done on the cheap by the renewals companies with little regard for track safety or the travelling public. However, he praised RMT regional organiser Brendan Kelly and local RMT reps for resisting compulsory redundancies. Assistant general secretary Mick Cash said that the union was facing difficulties with job cuts in renewals, the impact of Phase 2b/c and a hostile government which would all have an impact on the safety levels for engineering and infrastructure workers. “The job of the union is to defend workers and improve their wages and conditions and the way to do that is through organisation,” he said. He said that Network Rail was recently embarrassed by a RIDDOR report which revealed that of 90,000 PTS card holders over 65 per cent were not directly employed by the company but worked for agencies and contractors. He said that the union was currently carrying out mapping exercise to determine where RMT had members in train- maintenance, renewals, contractors and infrastructure in order to develop recruitment campaigns. Alan Pottage of the organising unit said that fragmentation and casualisation caused by privatisation represented a huge challenge to the union in terms of recruitment. “There are no better recruiters than engineering workers themselves to get their workmates into the union,” he said. He urged members to contact the organising unit and get recruitment materials sent to them for use in the workplace. Arising from the discussion, the meeting agreed to convene a one-day special conference on recruitment and organisation of grades RMT general secretary Bob Crow reiterated the point that organisation at the workplace was the key to defending workers. “We can have union recognition but that agreement won’t win a single penny unless workers are organised at the workplace because the employer is more likely to listen when more workers are in the union,” he said. ON-CALL RATES Conference agreed that the ‘on-call’ allowance paid by infrastructure companies within Network Rail should be harmonised, increased and linked to the annual NO TO CASUALISATION Engineering grades conference demands an end to the casualisation of rail renewal jobs