Network Rail to take legal action over strike ballot
Lawyers for Network Rail are to take legal action in an attempt to force the RMT to re-ballot its members on strike action.
They claim to have uncovered a number of irregularities in the ballot for strike action on 29th June.
In a submission to the court they are believed to be claiming that the information provided by the RMT was “inaccurate and deficient”.
With the strike action due early next week, a judge is expected to hear the case within three days.
Under union legislation the union is required to supply the employer with details of the number of ballots sent out, the places of work to which they were sent, and the grades of staff receiving the ballot papers.
According to the Telegraph, irregularities in the information received by Network Rail include 862 employees whose workplace was described as “unknown” and 12 employees said to work at Brighton signal box, which closed 21 years ago
This is not the first time that the RMT has had legal trouble with its strike ballots.
On 8th June the RMT called off industrial action against South Central Trains after they breached the requirement that industrial action should take place within 28 days of the ballot closing.
At the time RMT general secretary, Bob Crowe, said: “The company threatened to use the anti-union laws against us because they claimed our action was called technically one minute too late to be within the law,”
“It seems that a judge can declare our industrial action illegal because it was set to begin on the last bong of midnight rather than the first.
“These laws were designed as a straightjacket to make it as difficult as possible for workers to take industrial action – and this is about as absurd as it gets.”
The RMT is however expected to vigorously contest this legal challenge to strike action.
This legal dispute is however completely separate from the parallel threatened strike on the Tube.
