Category: LUL

Strikes Loom on Tube while middle managers shown to agree with RMT following job cuts

TUBE UNION RMT says that while strikes loom on London Underground middle managers have asked LUL Chief Operating Officer “How am I supposed to convince staff to break a strike/OT ban when I completely agree with many of the issues raised by the RMT?”

A leaked record of an “Area Managers Briefing” where senior Tube bosses met with area and line managers has exposed the chaos at London Underground stations following over 800 job cuts as part of LULs ‘Fit for the Future’ reorganisation that resulted in the closure of ticket offices on every station on the tube network.

Mick Cash, RMT General Secretary said,

“Tube unions have been warning LUL for two years that stations cannot function after so many job cuts. Now their own middle managers are telling them the same.”

RMT is accusing senior Tube bosses of risking passengers’ safety in order to try and avoid stations closing due to lack of staff.

“Instead of addressing a chronic lack of staff Tube bosses are ordering office workers and senior managers with no operational experience to cover the jobs of trained station staff after one day courses. We have seen people in jeans and trainers breaking safety rules as they try to cover roles that they are simply not qualified to do”, Mick added.

Tube unions are imposing an overtime ban on stations at present. As a result senior managers are having to cover for staff shortages on gatelines and platforms. While London Underground claims to be saving money they are paying managers and office workers bonuses of up to three times the cost of a customer service assistant’s wage to cover their roles.

RMT is now considering dates to take strike action in this increasingly bitter dispute over jobs, grading and forced transfers as a result of the closure of all ticket offices and associated reorganisation.

RMT has now released minutes of a management meeting between LUL Directors and middle managers. In the minutes area managers, who are responsible for all aspects of a group of up to seven stations, are quoted as saying:

 “None of the top leadership team have ever been an ACTUAL operational manger in LU. Do you really think there is a sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge?

 Doesn’t having Area Managers (£65k) regularly having to personally keep a station open in place of a CSA (£30k) clearly show that Fit for the Future was a disaster?

 Mark Wild (LULMD) was quoted at a Managing our Stations event saying we’d cut too far and the model wasn’t working, but aren’t the same people that designed the model doing the review?

 If you took a straw poll of the room what proportion do you think would take Voluntary severance now? I’d guess about 50%. How do you fix it?

 Isn’t Steve’s (Steve Griffiths LUL COO) acceptance that there will be a mandate for action ‘as usual’ (Referring to RMT’s ballot for industrial action) an indictment that we’re getting it wrong all the time, or more often than not?

 “How am I supposed to convince staff to break a strike/OT ban when I completely agree with many of the issues raised by the RMT?”

Drivers on Piccadilly and Hammersmith and City Lines to strike on 6^th and 7th December

TUBE UNION RMT confirmed today that drivers on the Piccadilly and Hammersmith and City Lines are to strike for 24 hours on the 6^th  and 7^th December in two separate disputes over a breakdown in industrial relations, breaches of procedures and bullying and harassment of staff.

The action in both disputes will run from between 21.30 hours on Tuesday 6^th December and 21.29 hours on Wednesday 7^th December 2016.

‎400 drivers on the Piccadilly Line will take strike action in a dispute over breaching agreements, procedures and policies which amounts to a wholesale breakdown in industrial relations between the union and London Underground.

The Piccadilly Line is the fourth busiest on the London Underground network and serves the terminals at Heathrow Airport.

The dispute is over a combination of issues including:

• Failure to properly administer LUL’s SPAD policy with continued threats to our members’ role as drivers

• Failure to respond to members concerns regarding the quality of training with management refusing machinery meetings and reneging on previous commitments

• The assertion from the Director of Employee Relations stating that staff other than the driver have the final say on the serviceability and safety of a train, going against agreed instructions

• Continued breaches and misuse of a number of LUL policies to the detriment of members, including but not exclusive to the Attendance at Work Policy and the Harassment and Bullying Policy.

The dispute on the Hammersmith and City Line is over heavy handed and aggressive management and a flagrant disregard for agreed policies and procedures. ‎

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:

“This dispute on the Hammersmith and City Line is about the basic issues of protecting working conditions of our members and defending agreements from attempts to drive a coach and horses through them. The management are out of control and the anger at their failure to follow procedures has boiled over.

“This breakdown in industrial relations should never have been allowed to happen and if agreements and processes had been adhered to from the off the package of issues at the heart of the dispute could have been resolved through the joint machinery.

“In the separate dispute involving drivers on the Piccadilly Line, safety is again a major factor and is tied in with the ripping up of policies and procedures and ignoring warnings from staff. Our members have been left exposed and vulnerable and we have no choice but to blow the whistle before lasting damage is done.

“The union remains available for talks in both disputes.”