ISS Cleaners

RATES OF PAY & CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 2015 – ISS (TUBE LINES AP JNP CONTRACT) (LUL/0001/ISS(TL))

Further to my previous Circular No. IR/246/14, 19th September, members voted overwhelmingly in favour of taking industrial action. Following this result, extensive talks have taken place under the auspices of ACAS and we are now in a position that allows our locked out members to return to work with dignity, including a hardship loan from the Company for those that need it. The options that have been given to individuals returning are as follows:-

From RMT General Secretary Bob Crow

I wrote to you last week concerning our dispute with ISS over their planned introduction of Fingerprinting technology to book on for duty. We see this technology as an invasion of your civil liberties and a threat to your jobs. It now appears that management are planning to impose this new Biometric fingerprinting process from early March 2014 so your union’s executive has considered this matter further and decided to call a ballot of all members for strike action. Preparations are under way to hold this ballot in the near future.

We note that despite this union’s objections - the infringement of our members’ civil liberties and the threat to jobs - ISS (LU CONTRACT) are pressing ahead with the use of this technology. We further note that they intend to impose this technology on March 2nd and have been insisting our members sign documentation in advance of this imposition threatening our members that they must use this technology or they will not be paid. We instruct the General Secretary to seek legal advice on this matter as soon as possible.

Funding Cuts
We are appalled by the Chancellor's announcement of a 9% funding cut to the Department for Transport, including a 12.5% funding cut to Transport for London. This savage cut can only lead to attacks on jobs, conditions, service standards and safety on all TfL services: London Underground, London Overground, buses, DLR and others.

We believe that the union should not wait for the detail of these cuts to be announced, but should launch a campaign now, building on our previous work and based around:

We note the report from our Regional Organiser and agree that our members should be empowered to refuse to book on using biometric systems.

We reiterate that we are completely opposed to fingerprinting and other biometric booking on
procedures, as these infringe on our members’ civil liberties and threaten jobs.

Accordingly, we instruct the General Secretary to immediately conduct a ballot of our members on this contract for industrial action short of strike, to a timescale that enables action to be taken from the date on which ISS attempts to impose this system.

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ISSUES – NEW TUBE LINES CONTRACT – ISS

That we note the ballot result for both strike action and action short of strikes is follows:-

Total votes cast - 77

Number voting “Yes” - 77 (100%)

Number voting “No” - 0

Spoilt Papers - 0

We congratulate our members on their determination to fight against this employer’s attacks on their working conditions. We further note the recent significant increase in RMT membership and commend our representatives for achieving this.