Staff at the TSSA rail union are again taking strike action this month over alleged bullying, intimidation and victimisation by the management of general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust. She was recommended by allies of disgraced former general secretary Manuel Cortes despite having no relevant experience for the role.
Rail union strikes back
A staggering 86% of staff voted in favour of strike action, on a high turnout of 73%. This latest strike action will be the second time that TSSA staff have taken industrial action over bullying and intimidation and a lack of fair process. The previous strike action last summer saw the rail union close for fifteen days with picket lines outside TSSA’s central London office – which Eslamdoust was accused of crossing. The strike is the latest instalment in the chaos and bitterness in the TSSA that have also seen the management cancelling and delaying election results for senior roles that went against Eslamdoust’s allies.
But a new email to staff shows Eslamdoust’s regime mounting an administrative attack on striking workers, and an apparent attack on their union representatives:
Private and confidential
As you will be aware the GMB, has notified us of its intention to take strike action on the 20th, 26th and 27th of November. They have also informed us that GMB members will be instructed to work to rule.
We believe this action is both unnecessary and damaging to the TSSA members, who rely on our support and representation in work place matters.
While it is your right to participate in any action called by your union, it is equally our responsibility to support our members and protect the interests of the organisation.
Please note the folIowing arrangements:
* On strike days, we will not accept self-certified sickness absences or approve new requests for annual leave or TOIL [time off in lieu] * Pay will be deducted in the month following any day on which strike action is taken * Any leave already agreed will be honoured.
From 20 November when the work-to-rule instruction begins, all staff are expected to attend the office on each working day and work their full contractual hours. Staff with permanent, formally agreed variations to contract will continue to have those arrangements honoured.
From the same date, we will also be re-utilising the requirement for timesheets for all roles. These must provide a full and accurate account of contracted hours worked and the duties undertaken. This is to ensure clarity, consistency and transparency during the period of industrial action.
The anti-union rail union
GMB insiders say that the email represents anti-union action and even illegality through:
• victimisation for undertaking a union action • a breach of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act, which says that employers must still pay sick pay to employees off sick during a strike — they can investigate if they suspect the sick leave was not genuine but cannot arbitrarily withhold • unreasonable additional work for staff even without ‘ASOS’ (action short of a strike) by demanding work logs • a variation to custom and practice in the workplace
The management email ends with a swipe at the GMB workplace reps acting for the staff, who have been suspended on what the GMB says are spurious allegations intended to victimise them — and with an ironic pledge of ‘solidarity’:
TSSA management remains committed to reaching a negotiated settlement on all matters that fall under our collective agreement with the GMB. However, it is non-negotiable that our workplaces must be safe and free from bullying, intimidation, misogyny, and any other form of discrimination.
In solidarity Management side
A GMB member working for TSSA told Skwawkbox last month:
The GS [General Secretary] can’t take criticism and just twists everything back and plays the victim at every turn. If they were competent to do the job, they wouldn’t do that.
Democratic values at the centre
Having been brought in — and recommended to members by the TSSA executive despite a lack of experience, after threats that they had “better select Eslamdoust or [they’d] have to answer to Andi Fox” a senior TSSA figure and close confidante of previous general secretary Manuel Cortes — Eslamdoust and her team have previously:
been repeatedly accused by union staff, who have been in dispute with their employer for more than a year, of bullying and using anti-union tactics against them — and of crossing their picket line during strike actionbeen accused of paying off disgraced former managers of the union she claimed she was going to sort out after years of sexual harassment and mismanagement under her predecessor Manuel Cortessuspended senior union figures not in Eslamdoust’s camp just after they won key elections or awards from the unionlost a unanimous vote of no confidence among TSSA staff and another unanimous vote by one of TSSA’s biggest member branchestried to bypass TSSA staff in their dispute by going straight to the GMB union that represents them at workattacked the GMB in the national press – and attacked striking staff in an email to members‘summarily derecognised’ the TSSA’s women’s group, which accused Eslamdoust and her allies of perpetuating the abuse and harassment that characterised the regime of her predecessor Manuel Cortesbarred delegates and members from last year’s TSSA annual conference and blocked a no-confidence motion brought against herattacked delegates at the 2025 conference as ‘parochial’ for wanting to raise these issues
This means war
Members and staff say that they are on strike again because far from putting right the sexual harassment, bullying, misogyny and abuse under Cortes, which were exposed in a searing report by Baroness Helena Kennedy, Eslamdoust and her allies have continued and even escalated the war on the rail union’s staff. Workers allege that the new email is yet another such escalation.
Featured image via TSSA
By Skwawkbox
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