SCARGILLITE Dave Rix has been confirmed as the next general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef and will succeed the ousted Lew Adams from next January 10, writes Roy Rogers, Industry Correspondent.
Ratification by the union executive indicates there will be no challenge, legal or otherwise, to the shock result which saw Leeds train driver Rix, 35, defeat ''old'' Labour stalwart Adams by 4558 votes to 3357.
It seems that complaints that Rix, a member of Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party, had been seen electioneering round the country while on three months' paid sick leave from his job with Regional Railways North East, and that there had been a flurry of unofficial circulars attacking Mr Adams during the election, were not considered sufficient grounds for challenging the outcome.
Meanwhile, rail and London tube travellers face possible disruption in the coming weeks from separate disputes over pay, working conditions and privatisation.
Today, the RMT is expected to reveal whether thousands of London tube workers are in favour of taking action in a dispute over job protection and conditions of service in the event of parts of the system being privatised. The union's executive could set dates for strikes which would badly disrupt the Underground network.
The RMT is also due to announce results from ballots of maintenance workers employed by several private companies in a dispute over pay and hours.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article