3rd August 2015
Immediate
RMT rejects latest Night Tube offer– strike action goes ahead
TUBE UNION RMT has confirmed that it has rejected the re-packaged offer from London Underground over the Night Tube in a meeting at ACAS this afternoon. As a result the strike action scheduled to begin on Wednesday afternoon goes ahead as planned across all grades and all lines.
RMT reps were furious when they examined the details of the current proposals earlier today only to find that they are a re-hash of previous plans and would continue along the course of smashing up long-standing agreements and destroying work/life balance in the interests of delivering the Mayor’s ill-conceived Night Tube vanity project. The union has said that it is prepared to continue talking.
RMT has also said that it will now be embarking on a renewed campaign to inform the public of the heavy price that the millions of weekday commuters, paying thousands of pounds of year, will be paying in terms of safety, reliability and quality in order to get a few thousand revellers home from central London in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday morning.
The union has also questioned the viability of getting the new services running for the 12th of September start date without any adequate risk assessments, a complete ignorance of the consequence of losing the weekend engineering and maintenance slots and without any agreement in place on staffing arrangements. RMT is warning that every Monday morning, when the volume passengers that pay for the Underground head back to work, is going to be a potential nightmare as the consequences of running flat out for nearly three days without a break become only too clear. All in order to deliver Boris Johnson’s legacy scheme that was cooked up on the back on an envelope without any understanding of how the railway runs in reality.
RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:
“Our members have made it clear that the latest offer from London Underground is merely a rehash of the previous package and does nothing to tackle the core issue which revolves around staff being at the beck and call of management to be hauled in during their free time to try and plug the staffing gaps which riddle the Mayor’s Night Tube vanity project.
“RMT is also deeply concerned that the talks are being conducted by people who have no background on the tube and no understanding of how processes and logistics work. That is deeply worrying and a major departure from when the combine was managed by people with a deep-seated knowledge of the railway. That is a major barrier to progress in the talks and one that we hope can now be cleared.
“The Night Tube plan has been botched from the off. The basics haven’t been done and those who will pay for this shambles will not only be our members but the London daily travelling public who cough up a fortune and who will find their safety and the reliability of the service compromised from 12th September onwards.
“The action goes ahead and RMT remains available for talks regardless of the point we have reached in the dispute which is perfectly normal.”