Stitched Up By Our Own Union.
Thanks ASLEF.
This month marks the 16th month of the longest-running dispute ever on LUL, namely the Acton Town remote booking on and off dispute.
I'm not going to get bogged down with the details, but as of this Sunday, Acton Town is back to the position we were in before the dispute started! We're back to remotely booking on and off at Earl's Court with no extra pay for doing so. However this is only until June when the new timetable is introduced, then the remote stuff will be abolished, however at the cost of upto 25 drivers being displaced from Acton Town to Earl's Court, losing the middle duties and nightshift duties to Earl's Court and possibly losing the rest of our so-called 'family friendly' rosters at Acton.
We were all invited to a meeting to discuss the latest position, and we duly attended only to be lectured to by president of the ASLEF EC (Executive Committee) that they'd secured a deal already and we weren't going to have a say! HOW THE HELL can they agree to a deal without asking the people it involves for their opinion first?
I could probably write a 10,000 word essay on this subject because I feel so strongly about it, but I'll not, as this is a public blog and you never know who's reading. However let me say that ASLEF have certainly gone down in my estimation and they are very lucky that the vast majority of ASLEF members at Acton Town aren't leaving the union in disgust as we were originally thinking about doing... Instead we are going to attend the branch meetings and actually try and make a difference to our depot's future as well as kicking our current reps out.
The RMT missed a trick as well! At the time of the meeting, they hadn't accepted the deal. After a show of hands, we overwhelmingly voted against what was on offer (a waste of time having the vote seeing as it was a done deal, but we did so anyway to show our disgust at the ASLEF committee). The RMT saw that vote and they could have rejected the offer. As much as I hate Bob Crow, I would have considered switching to the RMT if they had rejected the offer, but no... They followed like meek little kittens and accepted the deal after the meeting despite the result of our vote and hearing how angry we were.
Yes I know I'll be leaving LU in a few months, but it still annoys the hell out of me that we've been stitched up by the union we trusted.
This month marks the 16th month of the longest-running dispute ever on LUL, namely the Acton Town remote booking on and off dispute.
I'm not going to get bogged down with the details, but as of this Sunday, Acton Town is back to the position we were in before the dispute started! We're back to remotely booking on and off at Earl's Court with no extra pay for doing so. However this is only until June when the new timetable is introduced, then the remote stuff will be abolished, however at the cost of upto 25 drivers being displaced from Acton Town to Earl's Court, losing the middle duties and nightshift duties to Earl's Court and possibly losing the rest of our so-called 'family friendly' rosters at Acton.
We were all invited to a meeting to discuss the latest position, and we duly attended only to be lectured to by president of the ASLEF EC (Executive Committee) that they'd secured a deal already and we weren't going to have a say! HOW THE HELL can they agree to a deal without asking the people it involves for their opinion first?
I could probably write a 10,000 word essay on this subject because I feel so strongly about it, but I'll not, as this is a public blog and you never know who's reading. However let me say that ASLEF have certainly gone down in my estimation and they are very lucky that the vast majority of ASLEF members at Acton Town aren't leaving the union in disgust as we were originally thinking about doing... Instead we are going to attend the branch meetings and actually try and make a difference to our depot's future as well as kicking our current reps out.
The RMT missed a trick as well! At the time of the meeting, they hadn't accepted the deal. After a show of hands, we overwhelmingly voted against what was on offer (a waste of time having the vote seeing as it was a done deal, but we did so anyway to show our disgust at the ASLEF committee). The RMT saw that vote and they could have rejected the offer. As much as I hate Bob Crow, I would have considered switching to the RMT if they had rejected the offer, but no... They followed like meek little kittens and accepted the deal after the meeting despite the result of our vote and hearing how angry we were.
Yes I know I'll be leaving LU in a few months, but it still annoys the hell out of me that we've been stitched up by the union we trusted.
posted by DistrictDriver at 1:33 pm
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