The following statement was made jointly by RMT and TSSA following a presentation by management about 'patterns of non-attendance' at today's meeting of the Strategy and Development Forum:

RMT and TSSA believe that LUL management are orchestrating a clampdown on attendance, to such a degree of harshness that it amounts to bullying of our members and denial of their human rights and basic standards of justice.

Management are doing this despite the fact that, by their own admission, LUL has "some of the highest levels of attendance ever".

Management may believe that there is a problem of 'patterns' of non-attendance, but they are casting their net so widely that they will discipline members of staff who have done nothing more than be genuinely ill. Management's approach is based on an assumption of 'skiving', that if they can spot even a tenuous pattern, they will discipline staff, with no evidence of misconduct and without even directly accusing them.

We are deeply alarmed by management's attempt to claim that 26 weeks is no longer the maximum duration of a warning but a 'normal' duration which they may exceed. We believe that management are attempting to rewrite the Attendance At Work policy. Management are therefore going beyond the remit of the functional council and its sub-committees. This issue should be discussed at Company Council.

Further, we can not discuss these issues in good faith at this level when management blatantly disregard agreements already reached at the functional council eg. the agreement not to count items of non-attendance already used to trigger a warning.