TfW Rail Services Pay Negotiations

This is a report on the current stalemate between TSSA and the company over this year’s (2019/2020) pay negotiations.

Following on from quite a difficult set of pay negotiations last year the company set up a series of grade specific monthly meetings to resolve outstanding issues which they termed “legacy” items. We entered into these negotiations in good faith and were hopeful that we would finally start to see some progress on issues that we have been lodging in our pay claims going back a number of years. 

Sadly, our initial optimism turned to frustration and disappointment as meetings have been cancelled and those that have taken place have been disorganised and repetitive. None of the agreed meeting actions have been followed through so as of today we don’t have any proposals to present to you. So far, we have refrained from putting out any updates as we didn’t have anything to say however we think it is only fair that you understand where we are. 

We gave the company a deadline to give us a firm reassurance that we would start to see some serious progress in this year’s pay negotiations however they failed to do. As a union we support the Social Partnership approach that the company allegedly subscribes to however we don’t see many examples of them putting this model is put into practice.

Pontypridd

Another development which we know Cardiff based colleagues are desperate for updates on is the forthcoming relocation to Pontypridd. So far we have had an initial meeting with the company to discuss this however yet again actions were agreed and not delivered. We believe that a series of engagement sessions will commence next week and urge you to contact Tony De Luca and Gemma Southgate if you have any concerns and/or you would like them to represent you in any subsequent meetings.

We thought long and hard before drafting this update but feel like you deserve to know what is happening. We will continue to do all we can to support you and champion the issues that we know are dear to your hearts and have been unresolved for many years. We hope that this communication may provide the company with an impetus to start to negotiate with us meaningfully.