TRANSPORT union RMT has won the right to represent workers on the cable car service across the Thames in London.

The union will now have collective bargaining rights and will be able to negotiate on behalf of workers on the elevated £60 million Royal Victoria Dock to North Greenwich crossing after the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) accepted its application last week.

Employer DCC UK Ltd had opposed the RMT request to negotiate on behalf of its members as they claimed that “staff on site were pressurised into joining the union, possibly being misinformed by fellow colleagues.”

They claimed that RMT membership figures — that showed nine of the 14 staff members were in the union — were incorrect and that staff were “in the process of cancelling their membership or have forgotten to do so.”

But the committee dismissed the employers’ claims, saying that “no evidence was provided by the employer to substantiate any of these assertions and the panel has no evidence from elsewhere which would support them.”

The CAC found that “on the balance of probabilities a majority of workers … would be likely to favour recognition of the union.”