Justice for Dayna!

Picture this.

Feeling hungry after a long day at work, you pop into KFC before heading home. Someone decides to racially abuse you while you queue up. You’re pregnant, so you are anxious for your child, so you defend yourself.

The police get involved, arresting you, rather than the perpetrators of the racial assault, (but do we expect anything better from the Met?). However, even the police soon release you, saying there are no charges to answer.

You think you can put this awful incident behind you.

What you didn’t expect was for an ambitious DSM [for non-Tube workers - Duty Station Manager] to take the initiative, to go into the KFC and fake concern for your welfare, ask for witnesses, and obtain the CCTV footage.

All so he can build a case to sack you.

That’s right. LU have sacked CSA Dayna Nembhard for this incident. She was the victim of racial assault. She was not at work. She wasn’t in uniform. The police said there was no case to answer. But none of this matters when you’ve got an LU management who make their names and careers by sacking staff.

The RMT is fighting this case. Winning justice for Dayna is vital for us all. We don’t just want her to be compensated. We want her back at work!

LU makes much of its reputation as a diverse employer. But look at its record. LU was found guilty of racial discrimination by an employment tribunal for sacking Jerome Bowes off the Bakerloo Line in 2008. RMT rep, Elaine Holness, spoke out about LU’s discrimination at Jerome’s tribunal. Her white manager then put in a grievance, accusing her – a black woman – of racially harassing him! This treatment eventually cost Elaine her job.

LU obviously think it’s OK to discriminate on the grounds of race. Their attitude seems to be, ‘We’ll do what we like. If the courts find us guilty of racial discrimination afterwards, we’ll pay out some money’. That’s not good enough! We want the racial discrimination to stop in the first place!

In 2008, RMT discovered LU was paying out an average of £4000 a day in employment tribunal settlements. That shows that LU was systematically discriminating against and mistreating our workforce, factoring in the money for payouts like any business running cost.

Dayna’s case shows us they haven’t changed. LU will expect it to go to employment tribunal, they will be happy to pay out compensation. So we will give them something they weren’t expecting. We’ll build for a strike across LU to win Dayna’s job back. We’ll show that, unlike LU, as workers, we do more than pay lip service to equality. LU’s ‘discriminate now, pay out later’ attitude has gone on too long.