RMT Eurostar staff vote for strike action over long-term dispute

Members
of the UK’s
biggest rail union at Eurostar
have voted by more six to one in favour of strike action in a growing dispute
over pay and conditions.

The
vote, of around 330 engineering and maintenance staff members of the RMT union
at North Pole International and other Eurostar
staff, was called over a range of issues outstanding from the 2003 pay claim –
including the rate for the job, pay structures, concessionary travel facilities
and working hours.

Around
160 other RMT members, working in the company’s customer-service department at
Waterloo and Ashford, have already taken strike action claiming management has
failed to negotiate a straight-forward ‘rate for the job’.

"The
company has so far failed to make any move on all these outstanding issues, and
this decisive vote underlines just how frustrated our members have
become," said RMT general secretary Bob Crow.

"If
no progress is made by Friday, then the RMT executive will set strike dates,
and we will be contacting our sister unions in France
and Belgium
to seek their support," Crow said.

By Quentin Reade

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