Rates of Pay & Conditions of Service 2009, Redundancies and Breach of Agreements – LUL

From Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary

I regret to have to inform you that despite returning a magnificent “yes” vote for both Strike Action and Action Short of a Strike we are unable to use your mandate at this present time.

For your information you voted as follows; for strike action it was 3,165 for and only 619 against and for action short of a strike it was 3,495 for and only 266 against.

However, LUL has questioned the legality of the ballot in relation to the information we sent them as set out in the anti-trade union laws. Instead of sitting down and negotiating on these important issues they go running to their lawyers trying to find any loop-hole they can to ensure your right to take industrial action against them is thwarted. The Matrix we sent to them setting out members’ workplaces and grades had a number of errors, which is inevitable when you consider the amount of members employed by LUL, but the result is the union’s solicitors have advised us that it would be very likely a court would side with the employer as usual.

Should we decide to take any industrial action as a result of this ballot, and an injunction was granted, then we would find ourselves in the undesirable position of not being able to ballot you again for a several months on these extremely important issues.

The General Grades Committee has decided that it would be unacceptable to put you in this position and has decided, therefore, to re-ballot you on the same issues as soon as possible.

Once again I apologise for the disappointment you must be experiencing as a result of the union not being able to use your magnificent mandate but these anti-trade union laws have again achieved their aim which is to stop working people defending their pay, terms and conditions but LUL can be under no illusion of your strength of feeling and need to negotiate sensibly as I am sure the result of the re-ballot will be even more impressive.

Yours sincerely, Bob Crow General Secretary