CITY LINK SCANDAL

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: october 2015 :: RMTnews 4 T hree former City Link bosses are facing criminal prosecution over the collapse of the delivery firm in December 2014. More than 3,000 City Link jobs were lost following the announcement on Christmas Day last year that the firm had gone into administration. Former managing director David Smith, finance director Robert Peto and Better Capital director Thomas Wright have been charged with failing to notify the government of plans to make staff redundant. RMT demanded at the time of the City Link collapse that these directors should be prosecuted and barred from ever running a company again. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that they had connived to get workers to do overtime over Christmas and for self-employed people to do shifts that they knew they would never be paid for. "This was bandit capitalism in the raw and should have no place in British industry. “Instead of twisting the knife with a new raft of anti-union laws the government should be clamping down on those who treat the workforce like dirt,” he said. The three will go on trial next month and are the first directors of any company to be charged with the offence. Charges were brought under the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which the government has decided to use for the first time in more than 20 years. Employment laws dictate that employers must give workers at least 30 days’ notice before jobs are axed and the Business Secretary is to be given 30 days’ notice if more than 20 workers are let go at any one site. Although companies that fail to do so are only liable for fines of up to a paltry £5,000. The taxpayer foots the bill in any compensation payouts when staff are made redundant without proper consultation. It has already paid out £5 million to compensate axed City Link workers. “It’s inexcusable that the taxpayer has had to pay out via the National Insurance Fund to workers that the company has short-changed,” said Mick Cash. F ollowing a recent 100 per cent vote in favour of industrial action over a long- running re-grading dispute, Waterloo and City service control staff to took strike action last month. The action was forced on the union as a result of a total failure by LU management to address fundamental issues around re-grading for this key group of staff and the attempt to bulldoze through changes to duties without agreement. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that the members involved had a clear legitimate and reasonable demand for re- grading. “The union will not accept an offer which is based on a change in staff duties or which would cause a detriment to other members. “All our members are asking for is to be treated the same as similar staff elsewhere on the Underground. “If the company had spent as much time, money and effort in resolving this dispute as they have in trying to break it we could have negotiated a settlement months ago," he said. CITY LINK SCANDAL WATERLOO BATTLE