Great Western Railway: TSD Restructuring Vote

Following the last consultation meeting in early September, TSSA has been carrying out a vote of members on the final offer of the restructuring.

Results of the vote!

Out of those directly affected by the restructuring 49 TSSA members were offered a vote on whether they accepted or rejected the restructuring.

38 people voted and of them, 22, or 58% voted to accept the referendum

We then asked if you wanted to be balloted for industrial action or accept the restructuring - 20 or 53% voted accept the restructuring with 17 voting to be balloted for industrial action. In some respects, this was tighter vote than we previously had.

Other feedback

Despite the overall majority voting to accept the restructuring it is clear from some of the comments that there is still some dissatisfaction with the lack of information flowing from the restructure and some legitimate concerns that still need addressing. Some concerns centre on the “method of working”, “lack of information as to what roles are responsible for what”, “not enough has been done by the company to approach the DFT about making all pay pensionable”, concerns about being “overloaded with work”, “ the whole thing has not been well thought through and is a disaster in the making” with others stating they are “tired of the process” and worried about further delays “putting seconded colleagues at risk”.

This is obviously just a snapshot of some of the comments but clearly we still need to hold the companies’ feet to the fire in relation to both how the restructure is implemented and also following through on a meaningful agreement to grading progression, otherwise we may end up back in a situation where members are calling for us to take action and go into dispute!

I intend to discuss these issues with the new representatives that are being elected for the TSD Joint Council so that we ensure your interests are taken forward.

In the meantime, I wanted members to be the first to see the outcome of the vote and when I have an opportunity, I plan to write to the head of TSD with the result.