Union turbulence continues as staff confirm dates for pickets over union management’s alleged bullying, avoidance and abandonment of agreed procedures

Staff members of the TSSA rail union who are represented by the GMB union have agreed strike dates, following their overwhelming vote for industrial action last week. On a huge turnout of 86%, 93.3% of staff voted yes to both strike action and ‘action short of a strike’ in their dispute over what they say is bullying and high-handed behaviour by the union’s general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust and her team. Strikes will take place 30 April and 4 June, including pickets of TSSA offices.

Eslamdoust was recommended to members, despite what appears to be a complete lack of relevant experience, by a TSSA executive reeling after former general secretary Manuel Cortes was sacked over sexual harassment and bullying exposed in the Kennedy Report. The union has seen fresh allegations of abuse and deep resentment against the new general secretary.

Ms Eslamdoust attacked Skwawkbox during the general secretary election for scrutinising her and her supporters’ campaign claims that she had ‘high level trade union experience’, an article that led to accusations of ‘losing the plot’. She also recently wrote a bizarre article for the Guardian in which she accused the GMB union of attempting to bully her so it could take over the TSSA and distract from its own renewed sexual harassment scandal, and tried to blame others for her failure to take meaningful action to implement the Kennedy Report’s recommendations, outraging staff members who have pointed out that their dispute pre-dates the new GMB revelations.

In an ‘FAQ’ document sent to all GMB members working for TSSA, the group explains the reasons for the strike and answer the union management’s attempts to blame workers for the dispute:

Why haven’t you met with the EC to discuss your concerns directly?

We have not received any invitation from the EC. We are open to meeting with them and would welcome the opportunity to explain our issues to them. If the EC requested a meeting with the GMB that has not been conveyed to us by the GS or AGS, this is a worrying reminder of the previous Cortes regime when the EC and staff were kept apart from each other.

Three GMB Reps sit on the Change Management Oversight Group, with two EC members and the GS. As part of this group, we have repeatedly expressed concerns that culture change had stalled in the last 6 months and has now in fact regressed.

In addition, since the publication of the Kennedy and Conley reports in February 2023 (14 months ago), the EC have never met with the whole staff once.

We have, however, met with delegates from the EC, including the President and Treasurer, in meetings trying to resolve this issue on several occasions. In addition, the president has been copied in on all the correspondence about issues we have sent to the GS since last December.

The General Secretary says that nothing has been raised through the agreed internal processes? Why not?

The GMB reps have raised collective concerns through the established bargaining machinery at meetings in November, January, and twice in March, and also in correspondence, since November 2023, to no avail.
Individuals have also raised concerns through the internal and external whistleblowing services. Two staff are currently off work sick with work-related stress, which is itself an indicator of problems in the workplace.

Claims that there is no bullying or harassment

The General Secretary is aware of complaints about bullying, and a culture of fear, within the TSSA. They have been raised repeatedly in formal negotiation meetings between November and March.

In addition, one member of staff submitted a complaint under TSSA’s bullying policy against the General Secretary to the independent investigator Howlett Brown in December last year. This was after a vindictive and targeted bullying campaign against this member for a period of months.

At the beginning of this year the contract with Howlett Brown was terminated without any consultation with the GMB reps or any consideration of the consequences to staff with active complaints and queries.

This decision has caused our member additional distress and anxiety seriously affecting their health and wellbeing without any clarity or certainty regarding the status of their complaint, who will be investigating it and when. During this time the General Secretary has gone out of her way to damage the professional reputation of the member, repeatedly criticising and denigrating them.

To date no alternative independent provider has been appointed which is in direct contravention of the Kennedy report.

Bullying of a trade union rep

One of our Trade union representatives has been subject to hostile behaviour and bullying by the General Secretary, since last November. This has included sending an intimidatory email to the rep, circulating that email to every member of the staff body, and repeatedly lying about him and denigrating him to other staff, in what appears to be an attempt to destroy his reputation.

In an additional note, the group adds:

Finally we have recently discovered via ACAS that TSSA have made contact but we only found this out yesterday when they contacted GMB.  There has been no communication from TSSA to any of the reps or our FTO to discuss with us or inform us that they were considering or even doing this.

More big TSSA news will follow this afternoon, after the expiry of a press deadline.

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