From Jared Wood, RMT Industrial Relations Rep, to all RMT members on Rickmansworth Group

• Eight CSAs told they Will be Transferred on 10 Aug
• LUL Wait until RMT rep on Leave to Issue Notices
• We Must Stand Together and Fight this Disgraceful Management Behaviour

If anyone ever wanted to know why it is so important to join a union then here is the answer. You work for a firm that has no interest in its staff and is quite happy to tear up the rule book when it suits them. They don’t care if you have just signed a new tenancy agreement to live in this area: They don’t care if you have been on the group a year already and planned your life around your shifts here: And LUL will not talk to you to resolve a problem caused by their own management incompetence, no: They will wait until your RMT rep is on three weeks annual leave and then send out notices of forced transfer! No polite conversation, no apology, just an instruction that from now on its staff taxis at 3am!

All of this is happening despite management’s acceptance that there is nothing in the transfer and promotion procedures to allow such forced transfers. In fact, the senior Employee Relations manager at the last L2 meeting said that LU are “Relying on a letter” they say our members signed accepting the possibility of temporary postings yet they have not been able to produce these letters at all.

But the icing on the cake must be the utterly cynical way in which management have timed the issuing of transfer notices. When they tried to do the same thing last year, they waited until a few days before Christmas when, coincidentally, I had a week’s annual leave booked. On that occasion their customary incompetence led them to issue notices with less than 28 days notice and they had to withdraw them. This time they have waited until the Friday before I have my three week summer block leave. Next time you see a manager walking around with a gleaming, “Investors in People” badge on their tie; just ask them what they think about LU’s investment in our eight CSAs.

This is the worst example of management behaviour I have ever had to deal with as an RMT rep and we must fight it. I will be discussing arrangements for a ballot of RMT members with RMT head office today. I have managed to arrange my holidays so as I will be available to help support our members for most of the three weeks of my leave. I will not put in print when I might be unavailable because you never know what they will try to pull off if they think there is no rep around! I urge everyone to support our members here at Rickmansworth who are being treated so unfairly. If you are not a member of RMT please join now, you can do so on the RMT website or you can call me on 07796 698747 to get a form.

All the best,
Jared

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