LU have been forced to accept a Shorter Working Week must be part of any pay settlement but 30 Mins instead of a pay rise is unacceptable
For five months LU management have told us that there is no chance of a cut in the working week. Therefore the new offer that includes a 30min/week cut is welcome progress. The company cannot now argue that cutting hours is impossible. But the offer does not yet address the needs of RMT members on the tube.
Management want us to choose between a cut in hours or a pay rise. At the most recent ACAS talks management tried to get your RMT negotiators to accept that any cut in hours would be financed by reducing the pay rise. As you would expect, RMT refused to accept this. We say they should use the £360m surplus we generate to provide both.
RMT is prepared to talk to management about how a cut in hours could be implemented. We say any incremental cut must be banked and made available as banked rest days. Each function could then decide how to use these days, either in the roster or as leave.
We need whole days away from work, not 6 mins off a shift. What difference does it make whether you start a dead early at 05:00 or 05:06?
RMT has also made clear to management that all elements of our pay claim that includes Priv for all, a minimum increase to help the lowest paid and the upgrading of all CSA2 positions to CSA1 remain on the table and must be addressed.
Talks are due to continue but LU must understand that our patience is limited. Failure to properly address our claim will result in a ballot across the job.
Our demands:
- Management’s offer of 30 min cut in working week can only be the start of cutting the working week towards 32hours/4days
- RMT does not accept that LU cannot find more money to fund a pay rise and a more meaningful cut in hours
- Use the £360m surplus to provide more rest days and mitigate the terrible health impacts of our shifts
- Any incremental cut in the working week must be as banked time that can be taken as banked rest days
- 6 mins off a shift is no help to anyone. We need quality time away from work to recover from shift work.