RMT London Transport Regional Council has decided to set up an Olympics sub-committee. The purpose of this is to highlight the issues facing our members during the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, monitor the various employers’ plans, and campaign for a decent bonus and to prevent the introduction of casualised forms of working.
ATTENDANCE
RMT members joined other trade unionists and students in marching through London today to protest against rises in tuition fees, cuts in education funding, and the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).
The last photo shows me speaking at the opening rally, giving solidarity greetings from RMT - after a speaker from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts had sent a speaker to our Regional Council meeting two days previously.
RMT members joined other trade unionists and students in marching through London today to protest against rises in tuition fees, cuts in education funding, and the scrapping of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA).
This resolution, submitted by Camden 3 branch and seconded by Finsbury Park branch, was carried unanimously by the January 2011 Regional Council meeting:
This Regional Council believes the RMT should make the most of public anger around:
The campaign organised by the union should include: public leafletting, press releases, freedom of information requests on where Oyster incomplete journey charges go to, and investigating possible legal avenues for staff and passengers to pursue.
From Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary:
I write to advise branches that last week the High Court granted Serco Docklands an injunction preventing RMT from organising a 48 hour strike on the Docklands Light Railway. Yet again an employer has run to a High Court Judge to use the Anti trade union laws to ignore the democratic will of members. This decision has ramifications not just for RMT but across the whole Trade Union Movement and is the latest of a long line of high court decisions against trade unions.
RMT General Grades Committee decision ...
That we welcome the decision of the Employment Tribunal to award Interim Relief to Brother Thomas, which reaffirms this union’s belief that London Underground dismissed him because of his trade union activities. Given LU’s dismissals of Eamonn Lynch – who also won his Interim Relief application – and Peter Hartshorn, we can see a concerted anti-union campaign by the employer that must be met by a concerted campaign in defence of our union and its representatives and activists.
RMT General Grades Committee decision:
That we note that London Underground has issued notices displacing full-time staff only within the group of stations in which they currently work, but has issued notices displacing part-time staff to locations beyond their current group of stations, in some cases some distance away. It also intends to alter the working hours of some part-time staff in a way that is detrimental to them. The company has also failed to adequately consider part-time workers in its Equality Impact Assessment. We believe that London Underground may be acting in breach of the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations.
RMT General Grades Committee decision:
That we are disgusted by London Underground’s refusal to reinstate Eamonn Lynch despite the obvious injustice of his dismissal and the success of his Interim Relief application. We seek the views of the Bakerloo branch and refer this matter to our Southern Sub-Committee for examination and report.
There is a further relevant decision here.