Tagged with RMT

Strike ballots and unintended consequencies

BorisJohnson’s at it again. Rather than sit down and have meaningful dialogue with workers’ representatives on the London Underground, he’s been carping about a “lack of mandate” because the RMT’s successful strike ballot came off the back of a 40% turnout. Instead, Johnson believes every ballot for industrial action should meet a 50% threshold to qualify as lawful. Ever keen to mimic the buffoon and curry favour with the wilting Tory grassroots, Dave has intimated that he’d like to see the Underground classed as an essential service, an imposition of a minimum service agreement during stoppages and, of course, a turnout threshold. For both men, it’s about an instinctive hatred of a group of working people who have a record of winning disputes.  Continue reading →

The battle to keep ticket offices open on the London Underground

In the next two weeks, members of rail unions RMT and the TSSA are planning two 48-hour strikes, from noon on 4 February and again from 11 February. This video sets out the background: the threats to London Underground ticket offices and staff, and, in the longer run, a fully automated underground system including driverless trains, no-one on the stations to help passengers or to deal with emergencies, and a stripped down flexible workforce on zero hours contracts with no holiday or sick pay.

Video by ReelNews

Bombardier redundancies: does anybody care about Derby?

Thanks to my job as a business journalist, I can reel off facts and figures on topics from projected GDP growth in the Russian Federation to the outlook for tanker chartering rates. But I couldn’t tell you much about what they do in Derby these days. There’s no reason why I should know that, of course. But I had rather assumed the Treasury would be on the case, and factor wider considerations into government policy decisions.

Not so, according to the railway industry trade press. Lack of regional microeconomic data meant that nobody thought twice about what awarding a £3bn contract for 1,200 Thameslink carriages to Germany’s Siemens would mean for the East Midlands town.

Translation: Whitehall is insufficiently interested in what happens out in the sticks even to keep tabs on faraway places of which it knows little. Continue reading →

Tories get it all wrong on Livingstone campaign donations

The Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has briefed the Evening Standard, asking “what exactly Bob Crow will be getting in return for his campaign donations” to Ken Livingstone’s campaign. Yet no donation has been received. Specifically Philip Hammond said:

“I’m sure many Londoners, like me, will be wondering what exactly Bob Crow will be getting in return for his campaign donations?”

Rather than just ignoring this idiocy, Ken’s team have take the unusual step of drawing attention to it. A spokesperson for Ken Livingstone’s campaign responded: Continue reading →