Since we last reported, East Midlands Trains has sacked another guard’s rep, this time under the Managing for Attendance procedure. We lost a ballot for strike action and action short of strike to defend Heather Turner (a previously sacked rep) so we did not ballot in this instance. Both cases are now at different levels of the Tribunal machinery.
To rub salt in the wound, the company also made a divisive pay offer this year. They offered two awards - one that would be better for the guards and another that was better for all the other train crew excluding drivers.
As the guards are a minority in this constituency the company knew that they would be outvoted when it came to a decision on the offer.
It is hard not to get the impression that EMT take some kind of vindictive pleasure in doing the guards down. Or maybe they are still getting revenge for the strike action the guards took a few years ago.
On a positive note, RMT’s recruitment campaign amongst Select Service Partners (SSP) and Rail Gourmet catering workers is ongoing.
In the case of Rail Gourmet, there was initial concern from some of the long-established RMT traincrew, who rightly pointed out that RG was being used to undercut terms and conditions. Eventually most of this resistance was allayed, as we explained that we could not stop the company employing who they wanted on whatever terms and conditions they wanted, but we could recruit the Rail Gourmet workers to the union and then fight to get their terms and conditions improved.
The union has also uncovered unfair treatment of Rail Gourmet staff when they apply for external EMT jobs. Unsurprisingly, given the poor terms and conditions, there is a high turnover of staff on RG, and so to ‘help’ RG maintain its service, EMT have been excluding RG staff when it comes to consideration for these ‘external’ jobs.
We suggest that EMT could kill two birds with one stone here: bringing the catering service currently provided by Rail Gourmet in-house and paying them the same as other catering staff would both reduce the staff turnover and guarantee that the service was provided.