Staff at rail-freight company EWS are to be consulted on stepping up their industrial action over jobs, working hours and conditions after talks with the company at the arbitration service Acas broke down without a resolution.
The 1,300 engineering and ground staff who are members of the RMT union have already held one, 48-hour strike after the Court of Appeal rejected the company’s claim that the RMT ballot was flawed and overturned an injunction banning industrial action.
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“We had hopes that these talks might make some progress after the company dropped its proposals to load engineering and ground staff duties onto drivers and to lengthen drivers’ hours, and agreed to come with us to Acas,” said RMT general secretary Bob Crow today.
“However, the company has failed to make progress on the outstanding issues or to give us the guarantees we are seeking that there will be no further back-door job losses or worsening of conditions,” he said.
