RMT claims there's been 'complete breakdown in industrial relations'
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Workers at Northfields tube station may take strike action in a dispute with management.
The tube union RMT confirmed today that it will begin balloting Tube Lines members at Northfields Depot for both strike action and action short of a strike later this week in a dispute over what they describe 'the wholesale abuse of agreements and procedures'.
The union has listed complaints tabled by members at the station:
• abuse of the agreed Sickness and Attendance Agreements and Procedures
• denying members the right to access the grievance procedure
• withholding members’ sick pay
• freezing and deductions from pay
• denying members the right to representation
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:
“There has been a complete breakdown of industrial relations at the Tube Lines Northfields depot due to a cavalier disregard of agreements and procedures by a management who seem to believe they can do what they like, when they like.
“As a result we have been pushed into a dispute and RMT members have made it clear that they are not going to stand by while hard-won agreements are ripped up, and individuals are picked off, in a poisonous atmosphere of bullying and harassment.
“The management side should take the opportunity right now to end these abuses and to sit down with the union to put the industrial relations framework back on a meaningful footing,”
Nigel Holness, LU Operations Director for Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, said:
“We’re disappointed that the RMT leadership has chosen not to engage with the agreed resolution process we have in place for these issues, and I would urge them sit down and discuss their issues with us before threatening industrial action.”
4th March 2014