GMB members strike at TSSA

Adam DC reports

Management at the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) have written to of the union’s organisers indicating they do not have an assured role in their new organisation. 30 staff out of a total workforce of 50 in total are being told they will have to go through an assessment in order to reapply for their own jobs.

Staff at the union, organised by the GMB, went on strike today in protest. In a leaflet handed out by GMB members stated: “TSSA rightly celebrates the fact that they recently stopped London Underground putting tube staff through assessments as part of applying for their jobs”.

Yet this is exactly what TSSA management are suggesting should happens to their own staff.

“It’s hypocrisy” said one picketer who did not want to be named in case of management retribution. “The General Secretary of the trade union [TSSA] has repeatedly used Tory Anti-Trade union laws against the unions’ own staff.” Recently reps facility time was turned down, and the GMB officials have concerns about scapegoating and bullying of some staff.

In a letter to TSSA members, reminiscent of the sort of threatening letters private sector workers are accustomed to, the union’s General Secretary, Manuel Cortes, accuses its own staff of blackmail. He wrote “…, as you can see from a recent bulletin by the GMB it appears that they believe that they can blackmail our union into accepting their unreasonable demands just because of the potential embarrassment that a strike may cause….”

This letter is the latest attack in a dispute that has been running for 11 months.

At a recent staff meeting there was a unanimous support for action, and a call to stand together in this dispute. “Staff are solid”, said one supporter. “Management may be acting like anti-union bullies, but staff are acting like the principled trade unionists that they are.”