Safety rep is victimised

Members of the RMT rail union on the Bakerloo London Tube line were due to take a day of industrial action as Labour Research went to press.

The action is in support of a Tube driver and union health and safety rep with a 15-year unblemished service record. Eamon Lynch was sacked for gross misconduct after making one operational error in August.

Even though the union obtained an "interim relief" order from the Employment Tribunal, the effect of which is to amend the dismissal into a suspension on full pay, London Underground (LU) has refused to reinstate Lynch.

Interim relief orders are very rare and are only made where the tribunal is satisfied that the claimant is likely to succeed in showing that the real reason for the dismissal was because of his trade union activities.

While Lynch was dismissed, fellow workers who were also involved in the error were given re-training. And a driver on another line who made the same mistake after Lynch's incident was given a 12-month disciplinary warning.

These factors, as well as the fact that Lynch's union activities were referred to four times during the disciplinary hearing without apparent justification, and LU's failure to take into account Lynch's open admission of his mistake, led the Tribunal to make this unusual award in his favour.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said there was no doubt that LU's action against Lynch was a clear case of victimisation on the grounds of union activity.