Olympics Payments-South West Trains

Our ref: BR2/0001/SWT

11^th June 2012

Dear colleague,

Olympic Payments – South West Trains

Referring to the referendum held last year on the pay offer which members voted to accept, I write to you again to inform you of matters that have since arisen in regard to the 2012 Olympics.

I draw your attention to one of the points of the pay offer in which an extra ¼ % was tabled to cover the Olympics. Acceptance was based on the company stating that there would minimal impact and that it would be “Business as Usual” during the Olympic/Paralympic period.

This is clearly not the case as the company is advertising additional trains and later running over the entire period. South West Trains (SWT) has hired extra rolling stock and has hired extra staff. Also, extra crews will be on standby, cleaners will have an increased work load, as will platform staff, ticket office staff, guards etc. SWT have issued no guarantees that existing rosters and agreed diagrams will be honoured without enforced overtime for all grades. Indeed, a SWT manager was heard to say that an extra 80,000 passengers per day would be using Waterloo and I am enclosing a copy of the extra services taken from the SWT website for your reference so you can see how this will impact on your work/life balance.

Other Train Operating companies are rewarding their staff for extra work during the Olympic period. For example, the Heathrow Express deal gives their staff the potential to earn an extra £700 plus no extended hours to booked diagrams; East Coast have offered a lump sum of £300 plus an extra £25 per shift on top of normal overtime payments and Voith cleaners are to receive a payment of an extra £400 for the Olympic period. If other TOCs and cleaning companies can make these rewards, I cannot see why SWT cannot reward you.

It is the view of your union that SWT have been disingenuous from the beginning and this is definitely 100% NOT what your union signed up to. RMT will not stand idly by and allow the company to ride roughshod over hard-won existing procedures, rosters and diagrams. Your union’s Executive Committee has considered the matter and it is appalled at the deceitful manner in which SWT has conducted itself.

The Executive have come to the conclusion that there can be no option but to declare that we are in dispute with the company and ballot you all for industrial action. Papers will be distributed soon and I strongly urge you all to vote for industrial action. With a robust mandate for industrial action from yourselves we can show SWT that we will not tolerate their underhand tactics to try and scam you out of a fair payment for the extra work that the Olympics will generate.

MAKE SURE YOU USE YOUR VOTE

VOTE ‘YES’ FOR STRIKE ACTION AND INDUSTRIAL ACTION SHORT OF A STRIKE

Yours Sincerely,

Bob Crow

General Secretary