Following a series of victimisations, Tube bosses are upping the stakes by suspending a leading trade union activist on the network.
Andy Littlechild, a well-known local rep at Lillie Bridge and activist on the "company council" - the top relevant union body - was suspended by the infrastructure company Metronet on Tuesday 16 September, on trumped-up charges.
The London Underground Engineering and Fleet branches, and the RMT union executive, have voted to ballot Metronet workers for strike action. If Metronet is allowed to get away with this, every union rep across the network will be in danger.
The workers whom Andy directly works with are reported as being very solid in their determination to stop the victimisation. Success will depend on making sure all workers across Metronet know the issues. Leaflets are already being distributed to workplaces by reps and activists.
The spark was a local manager's arbitrary insistence on workers wearing hard hats at all times. Andy was working on a job with an agreed risk assessment not calling for hard hats.
The manager wrote a new risk assessment, deliberately shortcutting proper procedures and choosing to exclude the union. Andy wrote to the manager saying that he would stick with the established risk assessment.
Management then staged an "audit" and suspended Andy. Now higher-level management has seized on the case as a means to bash the unions.
The RMT needs to look at how to fight victimisations. It has two others on its hands now, apart from Andy - Karl Niles and Sarah Hutchins - and there have been several recently, with mixed outcomes.
While station staff took two days of strike action to demand Jerome Bowes' reinstatement, Elephant & Castle drivers voted not to join the action after a dirty tricks campaign by management. Jerome now awaits his Employment Tribunal, but remains sacked.
Several cleaners have been sacked or suspended following this year's successful strike action.
Mo Makhboul's workmates voted by a large majority to strike against his sacking, but in insufficient numbers to make strike action viable.
RMT was unable to successfully defend its London Bridge rep, Gyles Henry, after his workmates were divided as to whether to take strike action.
Earlier this year, RMT abandoned planned strikes in defence of sacked Morden DMT Sarah Appleby.
There have been RMT successes, too. This year, RMT won the reinstatement of Mukesh Mahatma, after his Canary Wharf colleagues voted to strike.
Last year, the union overturned the sacking of a DLR Train Captain. And two years ago, RMT's successful fight to defend drivers Raj Nathvani and Les Bruty was a model of how to fight victimisation.
Until about five years ago, it seemed that RMT could defend its LUL members' jobs at will. The turning point seems to have been the case of Chris Barrett, the famous "squash-playing driver" from Edgware Road. His fellow drivers took two days' strike action in his defence around Christmas 2003, but LUL would not back down, and even though Chris went on to win his Unfair Dismissal claim at Employment Tribunal, he did not get his job back.
What had changed? LUL management. They had become more belligerent, and had a boss - Ken Livingstone - who was determined to look tough against Tube workers.
LUL bosses' new aggression needs to be matched by new determination from the unions.
