All workers engaged in long distance railway freight and passenger transportation and telecommunication. All workers in locomotive, car, and repair shops. All workers in and around passenger and freight terminals.
Submitted on Tue, 06/19/2007 - 3:27am
Bristol train driver, Patrick Spackman, sacked for swearing by First Great Western, has referred the Morning Star to the Press Complaints Commission (PCC).
On 6 June the Morning Star, self-styled "daily paper of the left", reported Mr Spackman's sacking for swearing, which the company claimed had been "threatening."
However, two days later, the paper claimed that he had, in fact, been sacked for "violent harassment in the workplace against a respected senior lay union representative."
Mr Spackman responded: "This is completely untrue. I complained to the Morning Star but haven't even had the courtesy of an acknowledgment from them. So I've referred the matter to the PCC who now have a copy of my dismissal letter which clearly shows why I was sacked. I look forward to a public apology and retraction from the Morning Star."
Mr Spackman, who intends to take his dismissal to employment tribunal, is being represented by the Industrial Workers of the World, the union generally referred to as "the Wobblies."
A union spokesperson commented: "Someone seems to have set the Morning Star up here. But a bit of basic checking would have avoided the problem. Needless to say, the 'union representative' referred to by the Morning Star is not a member of the IWW".
Submitted on Fri, 06/08/2007 - 12:43pm
Troubled train operator, First Great Western, already short of drivers, has taken the bizarre step of sacking a driver for swearing at a colleague during an argument, claiming that the swearing was "threatening."
Sacked Bristol driver Patrick Spackman said: "I regret swearing at him. And I regret referring to his weight. But for management to call this 'gross misconduct' is just ludicrous. I'm afraid that this kind of language is used all day and every day on the railways and if the company is going to start sacking people for it they won't have many drivers left."
First Great Western boss Alison Forster is already under pressure over the company's poor services. Last year Early Day Motions were tabled in Parliament condemning reductions in services and now David Drew, MP for Stroud, has tabled an EDM calling for First Great Western services to be run in the public sector.
Submitted on Wed, 04/19/2006 - 10:51am
By Ron Kaminkow, iu 520 - Industrial Worker, April 2006.
Faced with rail freight carriers' demands for one-man crews, the leadership of the United Transportation Union and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen issued a public statement in February proclaiming solidarity with one another, and calling off - for the moment at least - their long-standing feud.
The unions have pledged to stop raiding, stop maligning, and stop threatening each other, and agreed not to sign agreements surrendering each other's jobs. The National Carriers Conference Committee, which represents the U.S.'s big freight railroads, complains that this violates bargaining ground rules under which the two unions had agreed not to share information with each other or to coordinate their bargaining.