Metronet Strike Off
RMT has indeed called off its strike on Metronet, but not without naffing off a fair few of its own reps and activists.
As Tubeworker cautioned here, the Strike Committee should have been at the centre of the decision-making about accepting or rejecting management's latest offer. They are the people who will have to live with the consequences of the offer and any shortfalls in it, and they have a much beadier eye for the details and failings of management's carefully-chosen words. But instead, the Department of We Know Best swung into action again.
It is not acceptable for union leaders to appreciate a Strike Committee when it is doing all the foot-work of building a dispute, only to brush it aside when the important decisions have to be made.
Next year's RMT AGM will consider Rule changes. Tubeworker reckons the union should have a rule that give Strike Committees some constitutional status, so they can not be ignored so easily.
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The wise and the good
The RMT must be lucky to have such wise and great leaders that they know what is best for the rank and file members. The deal itself is actually not bad but the devil as they say is in the details. The details needed clarification a two hour job at best, that in itself makes it harder to stomach, its not like an extra 1000% pay rise was being demanded. Metronet members have gotten used to winning it all, so why compromise?
It is akin to buying your kids an XBox when they really wanted a Playstation, thanks its really nice but please let us decide whether or not the present is what we want next time
Devil in the detail
As I read it (the link in this article goes to an article which shows the full text of the deal), the deal does not even mention the union's demand that no-one is transferred to another, private employer. That's quite a devil in the detail, isn't it? Or is that covered in some other agreement? Anyone know?
Answer
Liza, the answer appears to be that the CEO of Metronet wrote to RMT on 16 April, stating "I confirm that no staff from Metronet will be transferring to Bombardier ... It is not our intention or plan to transfer any members of Metronet staff."
The hole in that is quite obvious. Surely, when the dust has settled, Metronet could announce the transfer of some staff to some company other than Bombardier - Westinghouse, say - and say "We only said that it wasn't our intention or plan on 16 April. Since then, our intentions have changed."
To keep that loophole closed, the union will have to stay strong in Metronet, so that Metronet can't feel strong enough to go ahead with transfers.