Eleven JLE sparks win reinstatement

M&ESpecialist Drake & Scull has reinstated 11 electricians it recently made redundant on the Jubilee Line construction site at Greenwich.

Following talks at ACAS last Friday, D&S agreed to reassess the redundancies and apply a last-in first-out (LIFO) criteria in individual cases.

It also agreed that "the company's normal redundancy procedure will be followed" in future. D&S was unavailable for comment afterwards.

On 12 May, all 180 workers at the JLE Greenwich site walked off the job and were then threatened with dismissal if they did not turn up for work a week later.

Eleven men were originally made redundant after D&S had claimed they did not have work for the whole workforce. Site electricians said the 11 were singled out due to trade union activities after D&S claimed it had 20 extra workers on site.

The final statement issued by conciliation and arbitration Service ACAS declared: "current employees selected by the LIFO will be consulted on their selection individually and, subject to that consultation, will then have their employment terminated on grounds of redundancy with one week in lieu of notice."

There is then provision for individual redundancy decisions to go to further arbitration if the parties fail to agree on terms.