At the Strategy & Development Forum today (5 November), trade union and management representatives met and discussed the following issues. RMT representatives at the meeting were Malcolm Taylor, Neil Cochrane and Janine Booth.

Management failure to table issues for discussion. When management have a policy idea, they are supposed to table it for discussion at the S&D Forum before implementing it. However, it has become common practice for management to simply press ahead with their idea, leaving the unions to find out about it once it is already going ahead. We insisted that this is unacceptable to us, and management said they would "take on baord" our comments.

CCTV trial. The planned meeting about this has not yet happened.

Station Supervisor recruitment campaign. Earlier this year, management ran a Station Supervisor recruitment campaign that required applicants to have an MF licence. RMT objected and management withdrew the campign. However, in the latest issue of On The Move, the HR Director replies to a letter complaining about the campaign by defending and justifying it, not by pointing out that it has been withdrawn. RMT complained about this and management accepted our point, but said that it was down to RMT to riase this with the Director concerned and with On The Move. You can read my letter to On the Move here.

Work experience for disabled people. The unions continue to support management's efforts in this area. The company now wishes to allow the people involved to work on the 'paid' area of the station ie. inside the ticket barriers, as well as on the unpaid side. We siad that this should be checked with the Health & Safety Council. We also asked for confirmation that Mystery Shoppers do not make reports on these people.

Operations Strategic Plan. Management confirmed that there is a 12-week programme, due to conclude on 18 December, looking at organisation within the Chief Operating Officer's department, which had not been included in the Operating Cost Review. Management stated that This will have an impact on staffing of stations, how we run trains and service control. Although mainly affecting managers, frontline staff also have good reason to be alarmed by this.

Reasonable adjustments. Read a report on the discussion here.

Medical restriction. Read a report on the discussion here.

Unfilled vacancies. Read a report on the discussion here.