Reinstate Arwyn: Name New Strike Dates!

RMT needs to name new strike dates for its fight to win the reinstatement of Arwyn Thomas.

It was a blow when the union's executive rejected the strike dates agreed by our trains reps and proposed by our Region's representative. It's another example of the we-know-better attitude that damages disputes. But we can not let it knock us off our feet. We have to bounce back and propose new dates soon.

Arwyn's Employment Tribunal took place last week, but the judges won't give their decision until at least 27 June. The gives us a date to organise our action around. We can call the same pattern of strikes that we previously called, but in that week instead. This is the same week as the big public sector strike on 30 June, so we would get a degree of co-ordination with that, but by spreading the action over the week, would keep our ability to make our own news and put pressure on management without being drowned out by the much-bigger action by teachers, civil servants and others. (We would also need a token strike on or before 20 June to keep the ballot mandate alive, but that could be a very short action.)

When reps agreed to accept the deal that saw Eamonn Lynch return to work, they also voted unanimously that if LU refused to reinstate Arwyn, they wanted strikes put straight back on. Well, that's what's happened, so let's get the dates on. London Underground management, having heavily hinted that they would reinstate Arwyn, must be made to feel the consequences of refusing to do so.

It is possible, though, that the Tribunal decision will not be given until August or even September. It would be wrong to wait for the decision before striking. Why? Because we would lose a lot of momentum by then - we should be building on our success in winning Eamonn's job back, not letting it fade away.

Also, such a strategy puts far too much faith in the Employment Tribunal process. Tribunals often do not find in favour of workers, even in cases of clear injustice. Even if they do, they can not compel the employer to reinstate the unfairly-sacked worker. A 'remedy hearing' can decide to award compensation instead, and often does if the employer successfully argues that there is so much bad feeling that reinstatement would not be appropriate. (LU will surely argue this.) And even if the remedy hearing issues a reinstatement order, the employer is allowed to refuse to comply!

Moreover, we do not need to wait for this ET result to show that the Tribunal believes that Arwyn was unfairly sacked - we already have the Interim Relief judgment that says so. The Interim Tribunal told LU management that they should reinstate Arwyn, but they refused. That should tell us how much faith we should have in LU's willingness to 'do the right thing' should Arwyn win the full Tribunal too.

Once our May strikes were called off, LU instructed its lawyers not to discuss reinstating Arwyn, but instead to try to buy him off. The company is generous when it comes to funding the persecution of union reps, rather less so when it comes to maintaining decent staffing levels or giving us a decent pay rise! We should expose this scandalous misuse of public money and demands that it stop now: by paying Arywn to do his job, not by paying him to go away.