Protest over rail redundancies

Former employees of Jarvis from across the UK will attend the rally in Leeds as the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union continues to fight to save 1,200 jobs with the company.

Redundancies took place at the Jarvis head office in York, as well as Leeds, Doncaster, Peterborough, Newcastle and Glasgow.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "With politicians expected to be jammed in talks today, stitching together deals to protect their own jobs, Jarvis rail workers will be out on the streets of Leeds, fighting for their futures and for their industry.

"It's a disgrace that a mismanaged company like Jarvis can be allowed to crash and burn with the employees, essential workers playing a safety-critical role on the rail network, kicked in the teeth and dumped out on the cobbles.

"Network Rail have sat back and watched while this scandal has unfolded and today we repeat our demand that Network Rail should ensure an orderly transfer of the Jarvis work to companies that are committed to re-engaging the Jarvis workforce on their existing terms and conditions."

The job cuts were announced by administrators from Deloitte earlier this year. They said that, in the absence of further funding, it was not possible to continue operating parts of the Jarvis group.

A Network Rail spokesman said: "Jarvis' downfall has been well-documented over many years of poor performance and bad business decisions.

"Network Rail is working with its administrators to do all it can to help ex-Jarvis workers but investment in the railway must continue and other more successful and competitive contractors are now taking up the reins."

Meanwhile talks will continue today in a bid to prevent strike action by thousands of the country's railway workers which threatens wide-spread disruption to passengers.

RMT officials will hold the latest in a series of meetings with Network Rail bosses under the chairmanship of the conciliation service Acas.

The topic of discussion will be new rosters for signal workers with further talks over plans to cut maintenance jobs to be held next Wednesday.

Mr Crow said: "The 50bn of cuts facing our public services isn't some far-off target months or years down the track.

"Those cuts are already being rolled out and the 4bn that is being slashed from Network Rail's budget has now placed over 5,000 maintenance and renewals jobs in the firing line. We are talking about over 5,000 staff carrying out safety-critical repairs and renewals work on our increasingly-busy railway network. There is not a shred of doubt that axing these posts will represent a lethal gamble with rail safety."

Mr Crow claimed National Rail was proposing to transfer a further 1,800 jobs to private firms, or scrap them altogether to cut spending.

"That is deliberately provocative and does nothing to help with the talks that we are currently pursuing in our ongoing dispute with the company through Acas," he said.

National Rail denied it was putting safety at risk, arguing that it wanted to do more maintenance and renewal work overnight and at weekends.

The company has written to the RMT warning that an "impasse" was being reached on the talks about rostering and stressing it needed the flexibility to do more work overnight and at weekends.

Chief executive Iain Coucher says that without an assurance of worker availability at weekends and at night, National Rail would probably have to rely on the use of contractors.