Poor Industrial Relations and Safety on Network Rail in Scotland

That the Parliament is deeply concerned at reports that there are at least 219 unfilled track maintenance vacancies across Network Rail in Scotland; understands that this represents a vacancy gap of 10%; believes with alarm that this raises safety concerns and has also contributed to a management-driven culture of “job and knock”, which seeks to cram and rush essential track safety maintenance work to meet performance targets; understands that this approach is leading to inconsistent management practices, which are resulting in workers being treated differently in different areas, including being subject to unfair dismissals, particularly in the Inverness area; is dismayed at reports that repeated warnings and representations by the RMT have been ignored by management and that what it sees as this toxic combination of unfilled vacancies and unfair management has now led to a dispute situation, and calls on Scotland’s Railway Managing Director to intervene and meet the RMT's concerns and resolve this dispute and its root causes.