RATES OF PAY AND CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 2023 - CARLISLE SUPPORT SERVICES (NORTHERN TRAINS REVENUE AND GATELINE CONTRACT)

Our Ref: BR1/0001/CSS(NTL)

 

26 June 2024

 

 

Dear RMT Member

 

RATES OF PAY AND CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 2023 - CARLISLE SUPPORT SERVICES (NORTHERN TRAINS REVENUE AND GATELINE CONTRACT)

 

Today you will have received a communication from your Chief Executive Officer at Carlisle Support Services Paul Evans.

It is extremely disappointing that Paul Evans is not taking our request for meaningful negotiations seriously in order to reach an amicable settlement to this dispute which would see an end to further industrial action and bring an end to our longrunning campaign for justice and equality.

Paul Evans response to our offer of meaningful negotiation is to set up a bogus “Employee Council” made up of management-appointed strike breakers, non-RMT members and management grades. Our position is clear and has always been our position - the workers choose their workplace representatives, not the bosses. With over 150 RMT members on this contract you have made your views clear on more than one occasion who you want as your workplace RMT representatives. We need to make a firm stand against this veiled attempt to undermine the right of rail workers to belong in rail unions. We will make this stand and our voices heard from our picket lines and demonstrations starting from today again outside their offices in Manchester and when we return to their HQ in Luton on Wednesday 17th July.

Your employer (CSS) will do anything other than meet our long-standing differences head on and address the unrest that is rapidly escalating in your workplace through their own inability to manage staff with the dignity and respect we expect from all employers instead choosing to continue with their hardline approach that targets anyone who chooses to defend their legal workers’ rights who they consider to have “stepped out of line”. We have been campaigning and raising the very same issues since 2017 when they were awarded the contract by Northern Trains without any formal engagement from your employer CSS. Every attempt has been made by us the RMT to resolve all the injustices you face daily as outsourced workers and are now left with no other option than to continue with a programme of sustained industrial action until such time that Carlisle Support Services and particularly Paul Evans accepts it’s time to have your voices heard at the negotiating table through a collective bargaining agreement. We cannot allow them to continue with this “sweep everything under the carpet” mentality they have displayed for the last 7 years- it’s a clear sign they wish to further suppress you as exploited outsourced workers.

I met with your CEO Paul Evans on Tuesday the 25th June and reiterated to him once again that a simple offer of a voluntary recognition agreement would suspend further action and go some way to reaching a negotiated settlement to our dispute. This offer has clearly been declined given the content of his recent communication, instead opting for further industrial unrest over the coming months. This is unacceptable on every level and his position should be seen by you the members that he is refusing to concede to the reasonable demands of our current dispute.

Do not fall for his line in his communication when he says “it is also nice to hear that a number of new people have joined the GMB” This is a blatant lie and is designed to weaken your resolve during our re-ballot process. The GMB have little to no members on this contract and we are currently in communication with their elected officers to discuss the recognition on this contract going forward. You are all rail workers who belong in a rail union (RMT). It is simply unacceptable that Carlisle Support Services choose to negotiate with the RMT on certain railway outsourced contracts but not this one? You have to ask why not? They are using the smokescreen of GMB recognition to deny you a voice in the workplace.

I would urge all members to return their ballot papers answering YES to both questions. We have come this far and we need to see this dispute through until such time the employer wakes up and concedes to our fundamental right to be members of an industrial transport union.

 

Yours sincerely

 

Michael Lynch

General Secretary