EC Report October 2021

Pensions 

The meeting received a report from Deloitte on the TSSA Staff Pension Scheme. 

2021 TSSA Annual Conference 

The EC reviewed the motions passed at the 2021 TSSA Annual Conference and the recommended actions arising from these. In relation to the proposed merger with the IBB, it was agreed that there were likely to be continuing questions and that the General Secretary would endeavour to respond to these as thorough and openly as possible. 

Equalities1 

Hazel Conley gave a presentation on the planned equalities research in TSSA. 

Coronavirus report 

The EC noted that the onset of winter could lead to a rise in COVID cases, but that the political indications were that a full lockdown was not expected. SAGE/Independent SAGE scientists were indicating that working from home where possible was already desirable. Even such milder action would have an implication for passenger numbers, which are still at less than 70% of pre-pandemic levels. 

Sadly, our membership continues to decline from the peak we reached during the first lockdown and we had the biggest drop in membership in any period for a ong time and this is before any of our members who have opted for voluntary severance have left our rail industry. This means that membership losses will continue to accrue and are likely to accelerate over the coming months and particularly between January 2022 and the end of the finanacial year in April 2022. Our membership is now below 18,000. 

Investments 

The previous quarter had been quite good, with TSSA investments outperforming the market benchmark. 

Democracy 

There was further discussion of some of this year’s conference motions. 

· It was also noted that Motions 46 and 68 contradicted each other, one proposing to attract more people to the Labour party and the other proposing that we should consider whether we want to remain affiliated to the Labour party. 

· It was agreed that the proposed merger with the IBB should be a standing item. 

· A further report on the proposed merger will be issued in December. 

Industrial Relations 

A positive letter had been received from the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) following our General Secretary's participation at a week-long ILO meeting on behalf of the ITF regarding the future of Urban Transport. Al Stoten and Melissa Haywood had attended a meeting which had agreed to postpone the ITF congress for a year due to the pandemic. 

Correspondence 

In response to correspondence received, the EC agreed that our Communications Team would distribute any material received from the Peace and Justice Project. 

A donation was agreed to Barry Gardiner MP’s campaign against the practice of Fire and Rehire.