Finsbury Park managers are lashing out against grievances and harassments against them by fed up RMT members who say “enough is enough”. One member has been so traumatised by the harassment that they suffered they have been sent back to LUOH counselling after a fact finding interview 8 months after the incident. A culture of fear and threat has been imposed on the most vulnerable members to assert control but it has backfired and members are united that they shall take it no more.

One Rule for Us... There seem to be two sets of harassment and grievance procedures: one for managers and another for the rest of us. There are plenty of examples where operational staff are suspended when there is an allegation of harassment against them, which is what the harassment policy says should happen in order to protect the victim. Yet when allegations of harassment were made against two managers at Finsbury Park, no action was taken against them to protect their victim.

Bullyboy Management Serious bullying at Holloway Road has led to yet another grievance against management following ranting and raving against an SAMF in full view of customers for the crime of assisting an engineer who had come to work on a ticket machine.

There are numerous grievances against managers at Cranbourn Street that are not being investigated and there is covering up of managers’ disgraceful bullying behaviour at Finsbury Park. There are serious professional failures to investigate grievances and harassments. To avoid properly investigating grievances, management are asking outside investigators (CMP) to do it, which although not confined to Finsbury Park Branch, we believe is a breach of Acas guidelines and LUL policy.

Phone calls to sick members at home has become commonplace and the local reps have complained many times and been given assurances that this would stop, yet it continues.

Managers fail to sign the evacuation register yet criticise staff when they forget to sign in or out; managers who regularly leave before their proper finishing time. Again, there seem to be two sets of rules: one for them and one for us. Management should get their own house in order before disciplining any staff on the Finsbury Park Group. This follows two members of staff being stood down for “inappropriate roster and working practices” and the threat of an internal audit. Reps have identified what can only be described as “sharp accounting” regarding framework issues. This includes phoning staff at home when on annual leave and pressurising them to come in to work and suspicious overtime payments. When will an audit of these practices begin on these management behaviours?

Favouritism Favouritism is rife and seems to extend to breaches of the company secondment policy which should be open to all staff but seems not to be; an apparent face fits policy seems to be operating. If your face fits then you get what you want if it doesn’t then you are targeted for removal.

Because of the closing net on the management team with such a high number of grievances and harassment allegations against them and the high level of resistance to their bullying, they have attacked common working practices as a smoke screen to cover the glaring failures to manage. Pressure from above to control an overspend on overtime has triggered an attack on RMT members to distract from these failures of managers.

An audit on misuse of company funds? Serious misuse of company funds should be investigated. This extends to a misuse of the staff taxi facility on at least one occasion by management. How many more of these incidents are taking place and when will an audit take place into them?

Cruel and Vindictive On an away day ‘team event’ a SS was told by an acting GSM that due to domestic issues it was OK for his colleagues to assist him with his duties. As caring friends and colleagues they were working together to help without a problem and this was endorsed by DSMs. This was confirmed by the managers that visit the station at least once a day by not mentioning that there was a problem. A blind man could see what was happening and it was common knowledge amongst managers and given the seal of approval as it was only a change-over of duty and did not breach any agreements.

However, when a more senior manager turned up one Sunday it did become a problem. Two supervisors suspended for helping each other. Both have relatives with disabilities. This is the cruel, resentful actions of a management team out of control and under the microscope from HQ. When they have a problem for which they are being held to account they create a bigger one in order to hide the original one.

Kangaroo Court A one-sided audit is happening to snare supervisors and kangaroo court them under the guise of them being responsible for the out of control budget on the Finsbury Park Group. An audit of the managers accounting and failure to manage and the bullying and harassment of staff must be undertaken immediately to expose the mismanagement on the Finsbury Park Group.

Article from October 2009 edition of Finsbury Park Monthly News