Violence at RMT picket

Icon_article Published: Tuesday 29 July 2008 18:52 by Guido

Tagged as: strike tube union workers

A man was arrested by plain clothes Police following an incident early on Monday morning during a strike by station attendants at Elephant and Castle Underground station. RMT members were staging a strike at the station over the sacking of Jerome Bowes a member who had been involved in a scuffle with a drunk traveller on News Years Eve. At around 6.30am a man who was described as well dressed approached the picket line and allegedly shouted “You never stick up for white people do you?”.

Places: elephant&castle lambeth southwark south_london

Photos

404910-medium
Picket line begins early morning.

404911-medium
An hour later the transport cops arrive in force...

404912-medium
...to take statements following an assault.

404913-medium
Meanwhile at City Hall....

404914-medium
...another RMT strike is brewing...

404915-medium
...as the cleaners demonstrate over their pay and treatment.

[picket line incident continued] 

The man then punched one of the pickets in the face and attacked RMT president John Leach with a traffic cone. The incident was witnessed by two plain clothes Police officers who were driving past. They stopped and followed the man down onto the station platform where he was arrested.

RMT member Joe Thompson was left with a bloody nose and split lip said: “After what happened to Jerome I was afraid to defend myself as I have people at home depending on my wages”.

Staying on the subject of the RMT:

Cleaners working for contractors on London Underground are continuing their fight for a living wage and against the suspension of several workers by the ISS company. The workers, who are members of the RMT union, struck for three days earlier this month against their employers – ISS, Initial, ICS and GBM.

The strikers, who are mainly migrant workers, are demanding decent pay and conditions. Following the strike a number of workers at ISS have been suspended after they received letters telling them that their national insurance numbers are wrong. At present some cleaners are paid just over £5.50 an hour. They face harassment and intimidation from management, and are under constant threat from the Home Office. The cleaners and their supporters demonstrated outside London mayor Boris Johnson’s question time at City Hall on Wednesday of last week. Johnson said that cleaners on Metronet contracts – a company he now controls – would be paid the London living wage of £7.45 an hour “by August at the latest”. But in a later statement he said that this would apply only to those contracts up for renewal next month. That would leave cleaners on Metronet’s ITS contract, which is not due for renewal until 2009, being paid nearly £2 an hour less than fellow workers doing identical work.

Cleaners on TubeLines contracts on the Jubilee, Piccadilly and Northern lines would have to endure poverty pay until those contracts are up for renewal – in up to four years time!

Phillip Mambuliya, the chair of the RMT’s cleaners’ grade of the Finsbury Park branch said: “The union is attempting to find ways and means to stop the suspension of our members. Many of those suspended have worked for the companies for a number of years and have only now been told their national insurance numbers are wrong.”

Email Contact email: guidoreports@riseup.net