BUS DRIVER AWARDED COMPENSATION

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: february 2017 :: RMTnews 27 N early a year to the day after the policy was first announced, the government has finally published plans which will restrict access to justice for injured people. Presented as being to do with whiplash, but really attacking the rights of anyone injured, anywhere - including at work - the proposal will take away the right to free legal advice and fair compensation. The Tories are using whiplash as a fig leaf to increase the small claims limit by 500 per cent, from £1,000 to £5,000 for all claims, including workplace injuries. This will undermine the funding of union legal services and make it impossible for the vast majority of injured workers to enforce their right to compensation - while lining the pockets of the super-rich insurance company bosses who already get eye watering pay packets. The changes are in effect a huge cheque from injured workers and the taxpayer for the benefit of multi- millionaires. The insurance industry has spent years lobbying its mates in government to change how the legal system works. They have been rewarded with changes that will alter principles of personal injury law that have stood for generations and sound a death knell for free legal advice. The government has been talking up scare stories of a “compensation culture” and “whiplash fraud”, when their own statistics in fact show that the number of work injury cases has dropped over the last ten years, and they admit there is no suggestion of fraud by injured workers. The government skates over the fact that the insurance industry’s own figures show they have saved a staggering £7.8bn in claims costs in the last five years. And yet, premiums have continued to rise. We investigated the pay of the CEOs of the top three insurers and found that their salaries, benefits, bonuses and dividends gave them earnings in 2015 ranging from £4.82 million to £37.82 million. In their latest pay packets, Admiral’s Henry Engelhardt pulled in an enormous £37.82m, while Direct Line’s Paul Geddes earned £4.82 million and AVIVA’s Mark Wilson doubled his pay to £5.67 million. On the steps of Downing Street, when she was appointed prime minister, Theresa May said that her government would not work for the ‘privileged few’ but instead for those who are ‘just about managing’. It is hard to think of many people who better fit the definition of “privileged few” than these insurance CEOs. The facts simply do not reflect the ‘reality’: the insurers are raking it in and are happy to see premiums go up while it is hardworking people on low incomes who struggle to afford to drive a car to get to work in the morning and home to their families in the evening, who bear the brunt. And it is the same people who are being told that their injury, worth ‘just’ £5,000 is too small to need expert legal advice. Let them tell bus driver, a track construction worker or a station cleaner working long hours every week that £5,000 is insignificant and see how they react. The audacity of those receiving eye-watering rewards packages is staggering – they lobby for changes to the small claims limit that will only mean more profit for them and leave people injured at work or on the roads out in the cold. RMT, and the wider trade union movement, is fighting these proposals but your help is needed. Sign the online petition: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/173099, visit www.feedingfatcats.co.uk and follow @feedingfatcats on Twitter to join the campaign and send an email to your local MP to oppose the changes. Union solicitors Thompsons has secured a settlement worth £9,200 for an RMT member who was suspended and dismissed after refusing to drive a bus with a faulty horn. During the course of his duties, the member experienced a number of near misses after finding he was unable to use the bus horn. He understood that his bus was due to be substituted because of the broken horn and although he had informed his employers he was told to carry on driving it. After the member refused he was suspended. After reporting the matter to the police, he was subsequently dismissed before being reinstated upon appeal with a final written warning. On his return, he was also reduced to 50 per cent pay for the period between reinstatement and dismissal, and transferred to another garage. Thompsons solicitors were instructed to investigate a claim for compensation on behalf of the union. As part of his appeal evidence from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency confirmed that to continue to use a vehicle with a defective horn would have been an offence under s42 Road Traffic Act 1988 and his employer should not require him to drive a vehicle in this condition. The member accepted an offer of £9,200 compensation package prior to his hearing. The damages included a sum for injury to feelings, the 50 per cent shortfall in wages as well as the removal of the final written warning. RMTR general secretary Mick Cash said that the member was only trying to do his job in the safest and most responsible way and the way he was treated was wrong. “It was only right that the emotional impact of his unfair suspension was considered in the settlement,” he said. Andrew Hutson of Thompsons Solicitors added that the member was attempting to protect himself and others from danger in alerting his employer to the defective horn s and he had been treated with complete contempt. BUS DRIVER AWARDED COMPENSATION Union wins award for bus driver suspended for refusing to drive a defective bus THE GREAT WHIPLASH CON