THIS IS NOT ABOUT PAY – IT’S ABOUT MANAGEMENT!
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Northern and LNER drivers to strike Friday 1st March
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ASLEF picket line Cross Turner Street 0600hrs to 1600hrs
“Sheffield TUC supports Sheffield ASLEF train drivers at Northern on strike tomorrow to protect their agreements and put an end to management bullying” said Sam Morecroft, newly elected President of Sheffield TUC. “It’s time train drivers were treated with respect, and negotiated agreements – which management freely enter into – are respected and upheld” he said.
Mick Whelan, General Secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ trade union, said ‘We are fed up to the back teeth with the bad faith shown, day after day, week after week, and month after month by these two companies. We always stick to agreements which we make. These companies think they can break agreements – which they freely enter into – whenever it suits them. And they’re wrong. This is a shot across their bows and a sign of things to come. They need to stop what they are doing, start to behave properly and honourably, because their drivers – our members – are no longer prepared to be treated like this.’
The dispute at Northern centres around management failing to adhere to procedures and agreements on a variety of subjects including bullying, intimidation, and gaslighting of union reps and the subsequent cover-ups of investigations into this. Drivers are fed up with the draconian approach being taken by the company. Senior managers admit that industrial relations are poor and their ‘over the top attitudes’ to ASLEF should end – but their solution is to say sorry, put it down to inexperience, lack of training, etc, and then repeat it all.
For more information please contact:
Keith Richmond
020 7324 2407
07977 498794
richmondk@aslef.org.uk