Tube Lines cleaners fail to get living wage

Whether they actually get it or not is another matter. Amongst some of the RMT reps there is a concern that the RMT Executive suspended the action prematurely. Why did they call off the strike when cleaners employed by Tube Lines were offered an insulting 60p with no guarantee of the living wage?

Originally the strikes planned for August were to coincide with engineers in dispute with Tube Lines over pay and other similar issues. Wouldn’t it have made sense that the engineers and cleaners, both members of the same union, working for the same employer, agree in advance that they would refuse to call off their strike until an agreement had been reached that met the demands of both groups of workers?

Instead the engineers accepted an offer by Tube Lines and agreed to call off the strikes before they had a chance to speak to the cleaners who were negotiating in the same building! This left the cleaners out on a limb and in a much weaker position to take on the bosses.

The question of rank and file control is paramount. Decisions about when to call off action should be voted on by all those cleaners on strike. The strike committee must be accountable to the strikers, not the union bureaucrats.

Tue 02, December 2008 @ 18:01