Eslamdoust faction calls police to remove TSSA president from conference, then suspends

The faction supporting the TSSA rail union’s deeply unpopular general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust has called police to remove the union’s president from the chair of its annual conference. Former TSSA assistant general secretary broke the news on his social media feeds:

Unbelievably, the @TSSAunion Executive Committee has tried to remove the President from Annual Conference in contravention of the Rules, and he has refused to leave the chair. So the Police have been called!!!

— Steve Coe (@stevecoe1057) June 13, 2026

When police refused to intervene in a civil dispute, the rail union then found a pretext to suspend Adam Wilson and prevent him carrying out his duties as president and chair:

The 2026 conference began after the long-delayed close of the 2025 conference, which Eslamdoust and her supporters ordered abandoned to avoid announcing Wilson’s win as president — and to prevent a no-confidence motion against Eslamdoust by outraged members. TSSA only admitted months later that Wilson had won the presidential election.

Even before conference 2026 began, alleged management manoeuvres were underway. The conference venue was changed, followed by an announcement that members would not be able to attend because of lack of capacity:

But that was only the start. As the 2025 conference was finally declared over, the rail union announced that the venue it had communicated to members for the 2026 conference had been changed — only two hours before the start. Coe called this “incompetence”, but in context others might disagree:

Incompetence knows no bounds at @TSSAunion! 2 hours before Annual Conference starts, it has been announced that the venue for the conference is NOT the one on the agenda or other info to delegates.

This follows yesterday’s 140 minute late start to the online conference!!!

— Steve Coe (@stevecoe1057) June 13, 2026

Rail Union — Years of worker and member revolt

The latest scandal follow years of anti-democratic manoeuvres by the Eslamdoust regime against her opponents, who have reacted with outrage to her attacks on their democracy and on the union’s workers. TSSA staff have repeatedly gone on strike over Eslamdoust’s conduct and accused her of crossing their picket line. Her behaviour has already seen her lose a number of no-confidence votes. One branch summarised her record in a January 2026 demand for her to be suspended from her role:

Since the election of Maryam Eslamdoust:

• Illegitimate closure of Women in Focus the TSSA self-organising group for women that was central in exposing the sexual harassment of the previous leadership
• Suspension in breach of process of three leading TSSA activists, one of whom remains suspended without a hearing for more than 20 months.
• Created dispute with TSSA staff resulting in two industrial action ballots strike and now continuous action short of strike action
• Created an intolerable environment for staff which has been demonstrated by GMB survey and horrendously high rates of sickness of the staff
• Denial of any democratic challenges that presided over a disastrous annual conference in 2024
• Withholding the election results for President and Treasurer in May 2025 on the basis of an investigation into the conduct of that election. An investigation that has never had an outcome and it remains unjustified why the vote has not been counted.
• Creating a trumped-up allegation against President candidate Duncan Bates that he was a train driver when he was not to exclude him from the President election and EC seat.
• Creating a further spurious allegation against Duncan Bates following his successful subsequent election onto the EC from which he remains suspended
• Refusal to hear any appeal from members or branches at TSSA Conference 2025 in breach of rules.
• Presided over the sabotage of TSSA conference 2025 leaving about half of the conference business unheard.
• Cancelling of the reconvened conference in November 2025 and providing no alternative dates
• Removed representative credentials from 4 London Underground Management representatives without a fair process and with no consideration of the impact for the representation of our members
•  Refusal to respond to the vast majority of democratic challenges submitted by individual members, branches, divisional councils, representative groups or indeed union trustees.

With the denial of any form of democratic process or the ability for any candidate to be allowed to stand that may challenge the leadership control we have no option other than to publicly call for the investigation and suspension of the General Secretary

Eslamdoust then de-recognised TSSA staff’s workplace union, the GMB when it refused to prioritise her over its members — a move that any union leader would condemn from an employer.

The apparent efforts of Eslamdoust and her supporters to thwart efforts for justice and redress have seen the TSSA’s reputation trashed and both members and staff rising up in disgust. Now those efforts appear to have collapsed a third conference in a row into chaos.

TSSA has not responded to a Skwawkbox media enquiry since 2024.

Featured image via Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images