RMT escalates Signal workers strike in Scotland
MORE THAN 400 RMT signallers working for Network Rail in Scotland are to hold two further 48-hour strikes over the company's continued failure to implement the 35-hour week agreement signed last summer.
Signallers and supervisory staff in Scotland will strike between noon next Friday (March 16) and Sunday (March 18), and again between noon on the following Monday (March 19) and Wednesday (March 21).
And as signallers and signalling supervisory staff began returning to work after the first 48-hour strike in the dispute ended today, the RMT executive also announced plans to ballot more than 4,000 signalling and supervisory members throughout Britain.
"Our signalling members in Scotland are standing shoulder to shoulder despite attempts to browbeat them, and it is time that Network Rail acknowledged their anger at the failure to deliver the 35-hour week deal they signed up to," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said .
"Our members are adamant that the deal we signed last July should be implemented properly and in full, and after consulting reps around Scotland we will today be informing Network Rail of two further 48-hour strikes.
"Network Rail have been drafting in scab managers from around the country in their attempt to undermine our members' strike, and evidence is emerging of serious safety breaches that affect our members throughout Britain .
"The 35-hour week deal was a UK-wide deal, and the company's blatant reneging on the assurances they gave us over its implementation also has serious implications for our members throughout Britain .
"As a result the RMT executive will also now be informing Network Rail of our intention to ballot signalling and supervisory staff for strike action across the UK rail network.
"The solution to this dispute is straightforward. We already have an agreement in place, and Network Rail has only to agree to implement it, and to put a stop to the safety breaches," Bob Crow said.
The RMT strike was solid and provoked stormy arguments in the Scottish Parliament between the Nationalists and Jack McConnell ahead of the May 3rd elections.
It has also been the headline story on Newsnight Scotland and News reports.
Central to the strike has been the failure of Network rail to train sufficient signal workers to compenste for the one hour reduction in the working week from 36 to 35 hour week as they agreed they would do last year.
Signal workers also want to keep the 3*12 hour shift patterns and obtain an additional day off every 8 weeks rather than work management rosters of 5 days on and two days off - but it seems nothing the reps propose at local level ragarding rostering arrangements is being accepted by Management - who maybe trying to make a name for themselves at the workers and RMT's expense.
The 4 day strike represents a healthy early escalation of the strike. However the main lesson of the 1994 signalling stike was that the bosses could run a service during a signalling strike and early involvement of traincrew grades to get the trains halted is necessary. This should involve the RMT balloting its traincrew grades - all Guards and some 40-odd RMT drivers.
The rail owners in the 19th centruty realised that the two most powerful grades of rail worker were the Signal workers and the train driver. They made sure it was the evidence of the signal worker that got the train driver disciplined and vice versa to deliberately create an animosity between the two grades - this has largely worked. Its time those crude divide and rule tactices were challenged and overcome.
Signal worker activists should go to ASLEF branch meetings immediately invited or not to make a case for solidarity from Train drivers on Health and Safety grounds. If RMT Signal workers don't make a first move here the strike could drag on (as it did for 3 months in 1994).
Peter Burton