Heathrow tube workers in strike ballot
Tube workers are threatening to disrupt services to Heathrow following the breakdown of talks with management over alleged abuse of agreed sickness and attendance agreements.
The RMT union said it will begin balloting Tube Lines members based at Northfields Depot, who are responsible for the Piccadilly Line services, for both strike action and other industrial action later this week.
The ballot will end on March 27 and if there’s a ‘yes’ vote the union could take industrial action from April 3, affecting the whole of the Piccadilly Line, including services to every terminal at Heathrow airport.
Around 80 members are being ballotted.
Among complaints tabled by the union are:
- abuse of the agreed Sickness and Attendance Agreements and Procedures
- denying members the right to access the grievance procedure
- withholding members’ sick pay
- freezing and deductions from pay
- denying members the right to representation
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "There has been a complete breakdown of industrial relations at the Tube Lines Northfields depot due to a cavalier disregard of agreements and procedures by a management who seem to believe they can do what they like, when they like.
"As a result we have been pushed into a dispute and RMT members have made it clear that they are not going to stand by while hard-won agreements are ripped up, and individuals are picked off, in a poisonous atmosphere of bullying and harassment.
"The management side should take the opportunity right now to end these abuses and to sit down with the union to put the industrial relations framework back on a meaningful footing."
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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