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RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: april 2019 :: RMTnews
10
“The main business is what
happens in your everyday role,
in your workplace,” Brian
Buchanan, Edinburgh No. 1 and
Portobello said as he welcomed
delegates to the supervisory,
clerical and associated grades
conference to his home town of
Edinburgh.
RMT NEC member Bill
Rawcliffe said that it was time
to stand up to assaults on
members’ terms and conditions
in the name of technological
advance.
“If our members are having
new technology foisted upon
them, employers are not going
through the correct procedures,”
he said.
Kim O’Shaughnessy,
Lewisham, Southwark and
District raised concerns over
attempts by other unions to
poach members working in
supervisory and clerical grades.
Mr Rawcliffe said: “What we
need to do is to continue
representing people properly,
correctly, not just because we
want numbers in the union, but
because they care about them”.
More complicated was the
issue of grade harmonisation.
Last year the supervisory
conference passed a motion
calling for harmonisation of
grades across Train Operating
Companies (TOCs) owned by the
same group. “We found some
difficulty with that,” the NEC
member conceded. “All these
companies have separate
company councils, and those
company councils are the
custodians of terms and
conditions in those companies.
Whereas once members
received the same pay for the
same job across the railway, Mr
Rawcliffe stated that
privatisation “cast all that
asunder”, explaining: “You can
throw a mirror on the floor and
smash it but trying to put that
back together is very difficult.
“What the companies want to
do is harmonise downwards,
they’ll go to the lowest common
denominator,” he warned.
The union is compiling a
report on grade disparities “with
a view to using that information
in future talks”, he continued,
saying this was an opportunity
for “not just defending what
we’ve got but pushing forward
so we can get better conditions”.
Andy Budds, Leeds City
recalled that, upon the 2004
merger of Arriva Trains
Northern and First North
Western into Northern Rail,
grade harmonisation had led to
negative consequences for some
members.
“We’ve been very cautious
since then of achieving
harmonisation... because of
what you’ve got to lose,” he told
delegates.
Conference also passed a
motion calling for the union to
negotiate better secondment
policies with TOCs.
The motion from Feltham
branch called for staff seconded
to higher grades to be appointed
“as that grade after a period of
24 months without application”.
But offering critical support
for the motion, Andy Budds
said: “They should be filling the
vacancies in that higher grade”.
Delegates endorsed a call for
the union to negotiate with
South Western Railway over the
internal advertisement of
vacancies. John Donovan,
Feltham said: “All vacancies
should be advertised internally...
but they’re just ignoring that”.
Conference raised the alarm
over “back door” booking office
closures. Mike Sargent, Dover
District General Grades said that
there was now “little, if any
accountability” for TOCs failing
STANDING UP TO
ASSAULTS AND FOR
JUSTICE AT WORK
RMT’s supervisory, clerical and associated grades
organising conference discussed assaults, closures,
harmonisation and new technology