PRESIDENT’S COLUMN

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: july/august 2024 :: RMTnews 26 An RMT member who suffered ligament damage when he twisted his angle stepping on a tool at the bottom of a set of stairs has successfully secured compensation from his employer. The train maintenance employee had been working a normal shift as an engineer when the incident occurred whilst carrying out repairs in the pit underneath a train. As he had made his way along the pit, he came into contact with a flange lube stick which moved under the force, causing him to twist his ankle and fall forwards. The member suffered painful injuries as a result and sprained the ligaments in his left angle. Following the incident, he instructed workplace injury experts at Thompsons Solicitors to bring a claim for compensation, arguing that the pit floor should have been clear and free from obstruction and more could have been done to protect him. Whilst the company initially denied responsibility so formal legal proceedings were issued. through his RMT membership his legal team were able to settle the matter out of court. The engineer has since received a compensation care package worth £14,500 which reflects the pain and suffering that he experienced, as well as his loss of earnings during his recovery period. ICE An RMT member who suffered painful injuries when he slipped on ice in a staff car park has received a compensation care package. The member was injured while exiting a car onto a designated walking route and stepped on to ice with his right foot causing him to fall landing on his back and right arm, causing injuries. The staff car park area had not yet been gritted ready for the staff RMT members enjoy full representation in compensation cases without legal fees The Past We Inherit, The Future We Build” - the motto of the Durham Miners’ Gala - was on everyone’s lips at this year’s Big Meeting, nine days after an election that swept the Tories from power. 2024 marks forty years since the year-long miners’ strike. We have unfinished business. Labour’s election manifesto promised “to ensure, through an investigation or inquiry, that the truth about the events at Orgreave comes to light”. On 18 June 1984 hundreds of miners’ pickets at Orgreave coking plant near Sheffield were brutally attacked by police in a military operation. Tory Home Secretary, Amber Rudd rejected calls for an inquiry in 2016, saying it would not be in the “public interest”. An end to fourteen years of Tory corruption, but Keir Starmer’s Labour government has pledged to maintain many Tory policies, including the two- child benefit cap, which restricts child tax credit and universal credit to the first two children in a household. This policy punishes working class kids and families, while private schools get charitable tax breaks. It is pleasing therefore, that RMT Parliamentary Group member, Kim Johnson, MP for Liverpool Riverside, says she will move an amendment to scrap this disgusting policy when Labour Chancellor, Rachel Reeves’ proposes her first budget. At Durham Miners’ Gala, RMT banners from as far away as South Wales, South West England and London & Anglia lined up with RMT’s National Women’s Advisory Committee, behind RMT Newcastle branches and RMT North East Regional Council banners. Eighteen RMT banners were on display at Durham this year along with flags, friends and families taking part in the inspirational annual celebration of working class pride and culture. In 2025, we must turn out at least twenty five RMT banners. So, start planning now. Led by the magnificent RMT Fishburn band, we marched through Durham behind the National Union of Mineworkers (Durham Area) Fishburn Lodge banner to applause and even tears from onlookers. If you’ve never experienced the raw emotional power of marching with a brass band, then come to Durham on the second weekend in July next year. Join us as we march behind the RMT Fishburn band. If you can’t get to Durham, you can join the RMT band the following weekend at Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival in Dorset, or Burston Strike School Festival in Norfolk on the first weekend in September. Trade union festivals are an opportunity for conversations across the Labour movement. In Durham, RMT General Secretary, Mick Lynch spoke at a fringe meeting alongside, ASLEF’s Mick Whelan, FBU’s Matt Wrack, Fran Heathcote from PCS and Labour lawyer, John Hendy KC on the fight to restore trade union and workers’ rights under a Labour government. The meeting organised by the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom and the Institute for Employment Rights was clear that we must be unrelenting in our pressure on Labour to repeal anti-union laws and introduce workers’ rights from day-one of employment. But that is not enough. We will not trade off our demands for better pay and conditions against legal reforms. We don’t just want more cake. We want the whole bakery. The long fight to keep the demand for trade union freedom as the central demand of our movement owes a great deal to stalwarts who kept the fire burning over the past forty years of attacks on our unions. I remember attending the launch of the United Campaign to Repeal the Anti-Union Laws in the early 1990s with Bob Crow and Tony Donaghey (RMT Executive Committee members at the time). As the song goes, “It’s been a long time coming, but I know that a change has got to come.” Alex Gordon President’s Column BUILD THE FUTURE WINNING COMPENSATION