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ASLEF Charter
The ASLEF Charter continues to underpin the union's
industrial strategy and serves as the symbol that drives ASLEF towards
establishing conditions of employment that provide the benchmark for best
practice within the railway industry. As evidenced by the changes adopted at the
2003 AAD, the Charter is intended to be far more than a wish list. First and
foremost it provides a platform for negotiation through which companies can
begin to understand and meet our members' aspirations. As pay and conditions of
our members advance, so the Charter must continue to evolve to keep pace and
reflect changing priorities.
The revised Charter, as agreed at the 2003 AAD, is set out below:
- Professional salaries that befit our members’ status, with sickness and
leave payments to be 100%of salary.
- Pensions to be 100% of salary backdated to first implementation date of
DRI and the total eradication of the integration factor, and total
opposition to any further contribution holidays or eradication of final
salary schemes.
- Retirement at 55 with the first stage at 60 with no loss of pensionable
benefits
- A safe working environment, with state of the art technology equipment
for our members with a pro-active approach to occupational health and
welfare for our members.
- An average 32hr, 4 day week over the yearly roster cycle for all our
members with special cognisance of shift patterns and fatigue. The maximum
working day not to exceed 9 hours 30 minutes, or between 8 and 9 hours when
working night turns of duty. There should also be protection for our members
with a minimum turn length not to be lower than six hours of duty.
- All free time off from duty to be rostered consecutively, to be
guaranteed and mandatory by the elimination of institutionalised overtime.
- Improved annual leave and special leave arrangements with major
improvements to ‘work life balance’ so that our members only work to live,
with a more pro-active approach to obtaining better maternity, paternity and
parental including adoptive leave arrangements for all members. Strong
representational rights to time off and for educational purposes.
- Total job security and protection for medically restricted members, with
all members having access to an insurance protection scheme.
- All members having protective arrangements for security of employment,
whilst also being allowed to transfer or obtain promotion with the aid of a
PT&R or equivalent, including no compulsory redundancies or depot closures.
- Enhanced training and skills initiatives for all our members to enable
them to carry out their public service responsibilities safely.
- Pro-active recruitment of persons of those groups eg. women and ethnic
minorities who are currently under-represented among our member grades in
the industry.
- All members irrespective of service to receive equal free travel
facilities and improved free travel facilities which may be multi-modal.
This to include residential and leisure concessionary travel as granted to
active ‘safeguarded’ staff employed prior to 1st April 1996.
- No extension to DOO schemes, and all current DOO schemes (P) to be
revisited and safety risk assessed, with a policy of all trains having a
second person who is trained in safety procedures
- Short-term or fixed-term contracts are unacceptable employment
arrangements. However, to help members where it can be properly agreed,
job-share or forms of reduced hours working are acceptable on the basis that
it does not eradicate establishments or full-time posts.
This was taken from the Members' section of the main
ASLEF website
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