BREAKING NEWS

A High Court judge has ruled that a strike ballot held by the RMT was invalid, which means that next week's walkouts by signallers have been cancelled. The action would have involved two 4-hour strikes each day, between 06.00-10.00 and 18.00-22.00, in a dispute over flexible rostering.

The dispute between the RMT and Network Rail over flexible rostering moved to the High Court yesterday, after Network Rail had challenged the technical details of the ballot. The company said that 4,556 signallers had been balloted, but that the majority in favour of a strike had been just 112. 

It explained: ‘Our position remains that we have uncovered what is believed to be scores of inaccuracies and deficiencies with the signallers’ ballot leading the company to conclude in its papers to the RMT that it had “manifestly failed to comply with the requirements of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act of 1992”.’

Unusually, NR had published some details of its claim, including the allegation that ‘11 signal boxes had been balloted that do not exist – most have been closed for years. The RMT balloted members at Chalford signal box, near Gloucester, closed in 1965/6. It also balloted members at East Usk signal box, Newport, that burnt down in April 2009. 67 locations have been balloted where the numbers of RMT members exceeds the total number of employees that work there.’ RMT general secretary of the RMT Bob Crow described Network Rail’s move as an attack on the ‘internal democracy’ of the union.