Workbank Cut's!

Above is a copy of a letter sent out to member's on the subject of the announcement by Network Rail that it was cutting job's from the work banks of all the renewals companies this year.

The money that Network Rail has allocated for this renewals work is guaranteed 100%, but they have decided to defer this work until a later date. The present credit crunch has little if anything to do with it whatsoever. Some view it as a tactic on the part of Network Rail to drive costs ever further down across the renewals sector, to force companies to turn the screws further on their worker by changing to worse terms and conditions etc, which suit Network Rails own desires. And when they figure the costs and terms and conditions etc are right, then they'll take it all back in house.

For our member's the immediate problem is that it's unlikely that any company will carry a sizeable segment of its workforce for a significant length of time when its got no work for it whatsoever. Redundancies seem an almost inevitable result of the Network Rail announcement, which is why we must do all we can do to fight this.

Amey Welder's Update!

Above is a copy of a letter to member's updating them on the situation regarding the pending dispute with Amey over redundancies within Amey's welder's section. An agreement was eventually reached on the matter and the dispute was satisfactorily resolved without the need of action. It was just a pity that it couldn't have been sorted a lot earlier than the eleventh hour, but it went down to the wire. Our members held firm, showing support for their welding colleagues.

If it hadn't been resolved satisfactorily, it would have boded ill for the future.

Update to the Christmas Working payment issue

For those interested, members of Amey's and Colas paybill's were in Bicester to answer the queries of staff on payments for Christmas working. Though it was a week later than originally planned due to bad weather. They were available for most of the day, not everyone who had questions on the subject of Christmas working or other queries relating to pay were able to attend. Some staff were unfortunately on nights.

Anyway, on the principal issue on payments for working over the Xmas period. The few Amey payslip's I have personally seen from Amey staff appear to show that they have been paid correctly, I think much of the concern for them stemmed from a difficulty in reading the Amey payslips in the first place, they are not exactly what you would call crystal. And secondly, they became concerned when their colleagues from Colas starting kicking off shortly after Christmas about the payments. So on the face of it, for Amey staff it appears not to be an issue, merely the difficulty in deciphering their payslips and the reaction of their Colas colleagues combined to make them assume the worse.

As for the Colas staff, it would seem as there is still to be an issue, whether it can be resolved by further clarification and discussion remains to be seen. I haven't spoken with my esteemed colleague Mr Berry on the subject to find out what his perception on the Colas side was, but there would seem to be enough feedback from other Colas members to indicate that some question remain in this area.

So on the whole, the visit from paybills has been a partial success at least, it put the minds of some to rest over the matter, which is better than the situation was before it happened.

A one Cheryl Smith from HR was key mover in making it happen, she was appointed to deal with issues concerning the joint venture. As such, she has a foot in each camp so to speak, which in itself is no easy task. She's not the first to tackle the task of dealing with issues concerning the joint venture, but she appears to be the first to make some headway in the area whereas some of her predecessor's simple bulked at the prospect. For those that don't know her role in the matter, I would like to say thank you on their behalf.

Bob Farley

Circular 12th of Feb 2009

AGM item 13 circular. It calls for transparency in pay negotiation, keeping our members fully informed as possible, not making promises that can't be kept.

Breaking news!

Letter sent to member's following failure to resolve an issue that has been pending for some time with Amey welders. Always a regretable point to reach, not a course of action anyone relishes, but it's resolution or not, has implications for us all.