Northern Rail strike: sack the agency, not the workers!

Submitted by Matthew on 28 May, 2013 - 8:37

RMT members working for Northern Rail have voted by a 58% majority to strike against management’s use of agency labour in new areas.

Northern Rail has been using the Trainpeople and G4S agencies to carry out work, including checking tickets. Management claims this is only a “trial”.

Under the Agency Worker Regulations 2010, agency workers employed in equivalent work to directly-employed staff are entitled to the same pay, terms, and conditions.

But employers have found loopholes in the law, and do not guarantee agency workers the same job security as directly-employed staff.

If Northern Rail gets away with using agency staff to check tickets, it will use agencies across other areas of work, leading to pay cuts or job losses. If bosses can get away with having our job done by somebody cheaper, they will.

The strike is an attempt to stop Northern Rail doing this and to ensure that all work on the railways is done by properly-trained workers on permanent contracts whose pay and conditions are in line with union agreements.

We want Northern Rail to sack the agency, not the workers. RMT is demanding that any agency worker currently working alongside directly-employed is taken into direct employment, given full training, and have their pay and conditions levelled up.

Unfortunately, some of the union’s material has focused on criticising management’s use of agency staff rather than the demand for permanent jobs for them, creating a suggestion of hostility to them. Off The Rails believes every railway worker’s job matters, whether they’re agency or in-house.

ASLEF and TSSA both have formal positions of support for the RMT’s dispute, but have not translated that into action. TSSA has instructed its members not to do RMT members’ work in the event of any strike, but gives only weak advice about respecting RMT picket lines and implicitly suggests workers should join TSSA in order to avoid striking.

Casualisation is an issue for the whole railway industry. TSSA and ASLEF should be actively involved in this dispute.

If you’re in TSSA or ASLEF and you want to see your union join this fight, go to your branch and demand your union call a strike ballot.

If you’re not a member of any union, join! No union is perfect, and Off The Rails fights for democratic reform within all unions, but at the moment the RMT is the all-grades union leading the fight against casualisation.

You can join the RMT right up until the strike day itself. Join a union, protect your job!

From the Off The Rails bulletin

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