SUPERVISORY GRADES MEET

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: may/june 2026 :: RMTnews 14 Delegates at the union’s organising conference of supervisory, clerical and salaried grades meeting in Nottingham backed a call to confront what they described as a growing mental health crisis among members in the grade.  Conference president Sean Hoyle, Portsmouth highlighted the mounting pressures faced by clerical, administrative and supervisory staff, from excessive workloads and chronic understaffing to the isolation of remote working and the strain of enforcing management decisions. He pointed out that changes in working patterns were compounding the problem.  The expansion of agile and remote working had often led to increased professional isolation and a blurring of boundaries between work and home life, creating what delegates described as a “living at work” culture.  “The biggest thing you take on in these busy supervisory roles in the digital era we are in, you are never off duty.  “You all work on your phones or on your IPads, you never clock out. You’re always available, always reading emails and you’re not paid for any of that. The stress that causes you needs to be managed properly,” he said. A Edinburgh No.1 and Portobello delegate said: “I’ve come across quite a lot of situations where there’s a lot of clerical staff who tend to get forgotten. “If the managers are busier then so are the clerks and they are not properly resourced,” he said. Conference agreed to develop a charter for salaried grades that includes the ‘right to disconnect’ and guarantees that no member would face Capability Procedures for mental health-related absences. Delegates also backed a major push to defend clerical and administrative grades across the transport industry warning that the erosion of such roles posed a direct threat to pay, conditions and the union’s strength.  Andy Westwater, Cardiff Rail warned that employers were increasingly abolishing traditional clerical roles and rebranding them as ‘management’ positions, stripping staff of collectively bargained protections and weakening union density in the process. He pointed out that clerical and administrative workers are not peripheral, but central to the safe and effective running of the transport network.  “We need a robust campaign around this, better organisation and recruitment,” he said.   A number of guest speakers also addressed conference including RMT assistant general secretary Daren Ireland.  He emphasised that grades conferences must continue to grow so more voices are heard, and that they become bigger, stronger and more organised. “It’s an opportunity for reps across the country in a fragmented industry to come together and talk about their key issues. That way we can be on a common path to challenge the employers,” he said. Turning his attention to the national picture, Mr Ireland said that the coming period would bring about problems again with austerity.  “We know as a union that austerity has been around since the Coalition government in 2010, so we’re in the 16th year of cuts, 16 years of attacks on the working class,” he said. He praised the achievement of the union in securing an RPI pay deal with no strings on Network Rail, adding that RMT was in dispute with several train operating companies with the purpose of these disputes to secure similar deals.  “We have to be strong, and united as a collective union to ensure that the terms, conditions that you have today are maintained and that struggle is getting harder,” he said.  Looking ahead to the roll out of Great British Railways, he said that the union would be playing its role in trying to make it a success.  “We should use it as an opportunity to try and get any terms and conditions that we’ve lost, back. “We should use it as an opportunity to try and strengthen staff travel agreements and use it as an opportunity to say as ever, we are an all-grades industrial trade union where all grades come together in solidarity to win,” he said. Mr Ireland encouraged delegates to take part in the action against assaults, adding that the situation was “far worse now” from when he was a guard over 15 years ago, demanding the government bring in new laws to make it a specific offence to assault a transport worker. SUPERVISORY GRADES MEET RMT delegates discuss pay, organising and mental health