Rail union general secretary’s troubles escalate as staff react to alleged smears and abuse
GMB members working for the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action, including full strike action, in a dispute with their trade union employer.
The staff were balloted last week and, from a turnout of 86 per cent, 93% voted in favour of strike action. They will meet tonight to agree strike action and dates in a dispute over workplace bullying and harassment and failures to follow agreed policies and procedures designed to create a better workplace culture.
The TSSA, already reeling after its former general secretary Manuel Cortes was sacked over sexual harassment and bullying exposed in the Kennedy Report, has seen fresh allegations of abuse and deep resentment against new general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust, who was recommended to members by the union’s executive despite what appears to be a complete lack of relevant experience.
Ms Eslamdoust attacked Skwawkbox during the general secretary election for scrutinising her and her supporters’ campaign claims that she had ‘high level trade union experience’, an article that led to accusations of ‘losing the plot’. She also recently wrote a bizarre article for the Guardian in which she accused the GMB union of attempting to bully her so it could take over the TSSA and tried to blame others for her failure to take meaningful action to implement the Kennedy Report’s recommendations.
GMB London Region Organiser Andrew Harden said:
The ballot result is an obvious indication that our members at TSSA are united in their dispute. They want changes to how they are treated at work and are worried about how the union they work for is managed.
Repeated requests for TSSA’s leadership to agree to ACAS talks have been refused and recent media comments by the TSSA’s General Secretary have made it harder for staff to believe that the General Secretary or TSSA’s leadership want to resolve this dispute.
We now expect this employer to accept the result of the ballot, understand what it means and engage in good faith to achieve a satisfactory outcome for our members.
Eslamdoust has also been accused of ‘summarily de-recognising’ TSSA’s self-organised women’s group. The union’s executive member for Scotland resigned last week saying that Eslamdoust and union president Melissa Heywood had “pulled apart all the good work that the interim President and interim Assistant General Secretary” and were suspending staff for challenging their decisions, voicing opinions or raising issues about fresh allegations of bullying and harassment.
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Good start. Something is rotten in a once good union. It’s everywhere, how does that happen?
Given the consistently low turnouts for Trade Union elections it is difficult not to conclude that the root cause is APATHY.
Question is, what causes that apathy? It did not just occur out of thin air like spontaneous combustion.
When we had workplace ballots – not just for industrial action but also Executive elections – we regularly had turnouts averaging the high seventy/low eighty per cent mark or higher. Because everyone – apart from those on annual or sick leave – were together in one place.
Then the blessed frauline Roberts – under trade union legislation – scrapped that and forced everything to be operated via postal ballots. Overnight turnouts dropped to anything between 25% (often less) to a high of less than 40% at best. A predictable outcome in a lot of cases – particularly Executive elections – simply because:
1. The process is atomised. Practical opportunities for discussion, clarification and debate which occurs when such activity is centered on the workplace is curtailed. The majority are on their own. Reliant not on face to face contact with each other and local elected Union Reps but on leaflets which, for the most part, never got read because;
2. Its all (ballot paper and leaflets) just another piece of mail dropping through the letter box at home along with all the other mail – much of it junk mail. With other everyday domestic issues it takes a lot of individual effort and commitment to take time to sift through this. More often than not such material – including voting papers for whatever – at best got filed on the mantelpiece and forgotten about.
3. At the same time many workplaces became more atomised. With people working from home or remotely along with drastically reduced workforces and the breakup and atomisation of organisational structures based on the Carillion contract model (what in a previous era was often referred to as “the lump” along with the contemporary equivalent of the old ‘Butty Masters” in some instances). Reducing interaction and the solidarity which goes with it.
Particularly between generations. The older, experienced workers did not just pass on best workplace practices to younger colleagues but also other useful lessons and traits in workplace life. Like solidarity; acting in concert; mutual support; how to handle a gaffer; and a thousand and one other ways of protecting each other collectively, rather than individually, and having each other’s back against increasing exploitation.
Many industries and organisations went through a phase of getting rid of the older experienced workers on mass in one or two bites to break up the passing on of such traits and lessons of workplace life to succeeding generations of a shrinking and more atomised and individualised workforce.
Consequently, at least for those who operate on the basis of how matters work in a practical sense in the real world rather than some kind of simplistic Hogwarts world where such things happen by magic, the levels of what is being termed apathy here is not that surprising. Though apathy is merely one of a number of related features of the processes and structures touched upon above which produce the kind of results and outcomes being lamented/ criticised/cheered on [delete whichever is inapplicable] here.