RMT in row with industry supply firm over upcoming strike action amid 'sacking' claims

Union leaders have accused a rail industry supplier of threatening to terminate the contracts of employees set to take part in a strike this week.

The RMT has said Unipart Rail is “issuing outrageous and baseless threats” to members working at its Crewe site ahead of planning industrial action on Thursday.

The row has broken out after Unipart ceased to recognise the RMT in Crewe, leading to a dispute over whether October 31’s strike is official or not.

In a letter seen by RAIL, the union says the firm makes the “serious threat to dismiss any employee who takes part” in relation to a dispute dating back to August.

The RMT says Unipart has no legal grounds to declare the strikes as “unofficial” or dismiss employees taking part, with the letter accusing the company of being set to adopt “extremely intimidatory, bullying and illegal tactics” to “force RMT members to abandon their union of choice”.

Mick Lynch, RMT General Secretary, said: “Unipart Rail’s threats to dismiss our members for exercising their democratic and legal right to strike is a disgrace and an attack on fundamental workers' rights.

"We will not stand by while our members are bullied in this disgraceful manner. We will not hesitate to challenge Unipart’s actions in every possible way.”

Unipart said the issue over whether the upcoming industrial action is “lawful” was “being addressed in correspondence” between the two sides.

A spokesman said: “Unipart has taken the decision to move forward with one union representing colleagues at our Crewe service centre site, which we believe will work better for members covered by the Crewe collective bargaining unit agreement.

“As part of this process we ended voluntary recognition for the RMT union at the site, affecting a small number of colleagues who have unfortunately elected to take industrial action.”

The decision to not recognise the RMT at its Crewe site was made earlier this year.

“We continue to have a voluntary recognition agreement with Unite as the single union representing the largest number of employees covered by the collective bargaining arrangement at Crewe,” the Unipart spokesman added.