Thursday, 8 April 2010

RMT gives full support to “Justice 4 Jarvis Workers” campaign

RAIL UNION RMT today pledged full support for the "Justice 4 Jarvis Workers" campaign and gave an assurance that the union will continue to do all that it can to assist the 1200 workers dumped out of work through the collapse of the company.

Jarvis workers and their families will be holding a protest in Doncaster this Friday – 9th April – marching from the Jarvis depots in Bentley Road and Marchfield and then assembling outside the Mansion House on Doncaster High Street at 11am. RMT will be holding a meeting of the workers at 12 noon in Doncaster Trades and Labour Club.

RMT President Alex Gordon will be speaking at the protest which has the full support of both RMT and TSSA.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

"The callous and cynical way that the Jarvis workforce have been treated is a national disgrace. There is essential work for these staff to do and we are demanding that their jobs be transferred over to other contractors who are now bidding for the former Jarvis contracts. We have legal advice that the Transfer of Undertakings (TUPE) regulations should apply.

"It is a stain on the reputation of Gordon Brown and his party that Labour did nothing to save the Jarvis workers jobs - a move which would have cost them a tiny fraction of the many billions that was thrown at the bankers to save their skins. That failure to act will cost Labour dear at the ballot box in the towns and cities hit by the Jarvis collapse.

"RMT fully supports the "Justice 4 Jarvis Workers" campaign. These skilled men and women should be out there replacing worn sections of railway track, not queuing up at the benefit office. These 1200 job losses are wholly bound up with the £5 billion Network Rail cuts programme which is ripping apart both the rail industry and the livelihoods of the people we rely on to deliver safe rail travel."

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