RMT to ballot for strike action.

Amp34 said:
That however, does seem a bit odd... I thought employment tribunal decisions were mandatory?
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Nope - appeals process can drag out a resolution of years.

Sounds like the the company knows they are on shaky ground (for whatever reason - not enough info on the case atm).

Amp34 said:
So basically they the unions are blackmailing TFL to come to an agreement about either a driver that appears to have failed two alcohol tests or something completely unrelated, but this gives them an excuse?

And the RMT wonder why they are so despised by the General public, and unions wonder why most people see them as useless groups of a bygone era...
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Lol - calling it blackmail is like accusing a victim of using blackmail when the victim tells a robber he's going to call the cops unless the robber leaves.
 
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On any construction site he would have been sacked. Probably for a first offence if he was a plant driver.

I cannot understand the Union response on this. To call a strike ballot then agree to call it off if an employment tribunal was called. Still smacks of blackmail on the employer who is acting responsibly towards the driver, fellow employees, the travelling public and others.

One or two pints seperated by a nights rest and then work should be the absolute maximum and this would be unlikely to fail a workplace test.
 
Seriously sack the lot of them and get driverless trains. I can't stand these unions always trying to hold the capital to ransom even though the driver clearly deserved to be sacked for this.
 
amigafan2003 said:
Nope - appeals process can drag out a resolution of years.

Sounds like the the company knows they are on shaky ground (for whatever reason - not enough info on the case atm).
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This is what makes the whole thing suspicious to me. No tribunal is going to adjudicate against a company who terminate a professional driver for drunkenness, no matter what level of alcohol was in his system. I also find it hard to believe that the RMT would ballot if he had simply failed a random test.
 
amigafan2003 said:
Nope - appeals process can drag out a resolution of years.

Sounds like the the company knows they are on shaky ground (for whatever reason - not enough info on the case atm).
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Ah! So not allowed to appeal. Sounds reasonable by TFL tbh.


amigafan2003 said:
Lol - calling it blackmail is like accusing a victim of using blackmail when the victim tells a robber he's going to call the cops unless the robber leaves.
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More like the victim defending themselves and the burglar threatening to "do" them for assault of they rang the police.
 
Castiel said:
This is what makes the whole thing suspicious to me. No tribunal is going to adjudicate against a company who terminate a professional driver for drunkenness, no matter what level of alcohol was in his system. I also find it hard to believe that the RMT would ballot if he had simply failed a random test.
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May be to do with the apology TFL released saying he wasn't drinking on the job. May be a case of errors in the sacking process?
 
I love how people just read the news and assume that's all there is to it.

http://www.rmtlondoncalling.org.uk/node/5249

There is more information on there, and also a pdf with even more information, which explains what RMT are disputing.

Anyway our alcohol policy is 0 units 8 hours before a shift, 7 units allowed 24 hours before (to give enough time for the 7 units to leave your system).

My complete guess is that he had a couple of units at some point within 7 hours but thought it would be out by the time he started his shift, which would be likely, but for whatever reason, be it due to his diabetes or not, it wasn't so he failed. And now they are trying to say it failed due to the diabetes and NOT the alcohol.

If he did drink within those 7 hours then I agree he should be sacked regardless.
 
Judgeneo said:
Indeed.


London underground driver pay: £42k - £52k
London bus driver pay: £17k - £30k

One has to monitor passengers, dodge vehicles, and respond to quickly changing events.
One has a support team to monitor passengers, makes a few announcements, and moves in straight lines.
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You are ignorant of the actual duties of a train driver it seems. What do you do for a living may I ask? If I make huge assumptions about the difficulty of your job does this mean I can suggest you are over-paid too?

If the driver did indeed fail a random test twice then he needs to go. Failing it the first time should have been the point at which he was dismissed and any rail worker supporting this strike ought to be ashamed of themselves. If the rumours are true mind..
 
ExRayTed said:
You are ignorant of the actual duties of a train driver it seems. What do you do for a living may I ask? If I make huge assumptions about the difficulty of your job does this mean I can suggest you are over-paid too?
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Please enlighten me then, it seems to be that they have an easier job than bus drivers, and national train drivers, yet on average get paid more.
I work in cyber Security.
 
Frankly if there is more to the case then that is something the union can help with by supporting him in a legal case against TFL for unfair dismissal.

It is still ridiculous to potentially call a strike over a dispute related to a colleague being sacked for failing two breath tests.
 
Judgeneo said:
Please enlighten me then, it seems to be that they have an easier job than bus drivers, and national train drivers, yet on average get paid more.
I work in cyber Security.
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It seems to you. Seems

I will not sit here and educate you. Every time there is a thread regarding rail strikes someone always comes in with a post like yours. If you're interested, educate yourself by going back and looking at my previous posts.

Cyber security? That's just sitting on your backside watching a monitor screen, pushing the odd button now and again isn't it?

For the record I drove a bus for 4 years in central London and have been a qualified train driver for the past 18 years and I know which was the harder job of the two - the one that took me a year to get rather than the one that took me 13 days to get.
 
dowie said:
Frankly if there is more to the case then that is something the union can help with by supporting him in a legal case against TFL for unfair dismissal.

It is still ridiculous to potentially call a strike over a dispute related to a colleague being sacked for failing two breath tests.
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It appears that he had a declared medical condition that can often produce false positives (I have training on the type of alcohol breath test they use and this is explained to us, diabetics can indeed have acetone which shows a false positive) in which case he should have been tested via a urine sample for alcohol, which they failed to do. Instead they summarily dismissed him based solely on a flawed test.
 
Castiel said:
It appears that he had a declared medical condition that can often produce false positives (I have training on the type of alcohol breath test they use and this is explained to us, diabetics can indeed have acetone which shows a false positive) in which case he should have been tested via a urine sample for alcohol, which they failed to do. Instead they summarily dismissed him based solely on a flawed test.
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Well done Castiel for getting to the bottom of it.

So - TFL - wrong and intransigent.
RMT - backed into a corner, with balloting for strike action used as a means of negotiation.

Good luck to the RMT I say.
 
Damn.

I thought with Bob croaking it may have lessened their ability. But they're just as moronic as ever.

**** them. Bring on the automated trains!
 
It all depends on when the alcohol was consumed prior to his shift.

It may be, that he admitted to having a drink outside of the 8 hours before his shift, which as long as he stayed below 7 units he should have been fine.

The problem comes when the breath test shows positive, which it did..whether due to alcohol or a false positive due to his diabetes. Who's to say he didn't drink more than 7 units? Which is where the urine test should have been applied to determine how much alcohol was in his system.
 
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