Our strike action starts this evening, and then gets serious in a week's time. Union activists and supporters will be gathering at Golders Green in a couple of hours time, rallying for workplace justice and then dispersing to picket some of the depots with night turns.
No night turn driver should go to work tonight. This is just an opening salvo, but it is nevertheless important that management see how strongly we feel about their persecution of Arywn Thomas.
The trade union movement has long had a slogan that 'an injury to one is an injury to all'. That means that this dispute is not about Arywn Thomas: it is about all of us. If management get away with sacking him, then none of us is safe. Even if you don't get singled out for the sack, you could find your workplace without a union rep, or with a rep to cowed to stand up to management. Then the disciplinary clampdown with gather pace - and it's quite bad enough as it is!
We are striking to enforce workplace justice. Although the Employment Tribunal wins so far have been useful additions to our armoury, and have helped the momentum of our campaign, we can not and do not rely on the Tribunal Service to fight our battles for us. Plenty of workers have taken cases of genuine injustice to Tribunal only to be fobbed off or turned away by judges who listen to employers more keenly than to workers.
We can be sure that management will make a big deal of tonight's strike causing little disruption. We should not let this rattle us: this overnight action is intended mainly to keep the legal ballot mandate alive, not to cause a shutdown. The fact that it is irritating management - who are having to work extra hard in an attempt to ensure the last and first trains run - is just a bonus!
Our workmates at Heathrow Express are also taking strike and other action over the next couple of weeks, in a fight for a better pay deal. It is unfortunate that RMT has not managed to coincide their action with ours, as with both companies’ workforces on strike, travel to Heathrow airport would have been knocked out, putting serious pressure on both companies. Nonetheless, we should link up with them, for example visiting each others' picket lines and meetings.