Tube Lines: Pay, Pensions and Night Tube
All three issues have now become intrinsically linked together. LUL/ Tube Lines want to state that the Pay cannot be settled without agreement to Night Tube. The RMT are saying that there will be no agreement to Night Tube unless the Company agree to entry into the TfL Pension Scheme for all. Throw into this complex web that LUL have now imposed Night Tube running on the Jubilee Line and are about to start on the Northern then matters are coming to a head.
So I think it is important to recap on where we are with each item.
Pay
Pay discussions stalled on the issue of the Company Offer differing from that given to LUL staff. All through the talks Tube Lines had stated it would be the same as LUL only for us to receive a final offer that was fundamentally different. Whilst the money was the same, there was none of the guarantees of no change of rosters, work life balance etc. Indeed it stated that staff would have to move to Sunday to Thursday and this had major impacts on our members. In LUL Engineering staff could stay Monday to Friday even on Night Tube Lines.
For clarity, we see no reason why implementation of the Pay rise cannot take place NOW.
pay-night-tube-offer-rmt-05-02-16-1
This offer was therefore unacceptable and the Night Tube Sections needed to be altered to meet the aspirations of our membership
Night Tube
LUL have now implemented night tube on the Jubilee Line and are about to start it on the Northern. However, Tube Lines have agreed that no further implementation of Sunday to Thursday working will occur at this time. Your union have made it clear that if this position changes with regards to this then we will have no choice but to ask our executive to name strike action.
Also, some staff went Sunday to Thursday a while ago such as Track Staff and the company alleged that this was not linked to night tube. This obviously, is not the case and we are making sure that any agreement incorporates all staff and that these changes are very much part of our talks. We are also pushing that any staff wishing to be on a Monday to Friday roster should be able to transfer to LUL lines in equivalent grades. This would be on LUL terms and conditions and where vacancies exist.
Pensions
Discussions have taken place at a Joint Working Party in both Tube Lines and LUL and we are reporting back on any progress at Acas next week (probably Monday 17th October). LUL have again stated that they believe that the implementation date of April 2017 will be achieved and the issue is funding. We believe that there is money there now that Amey are losing the contract and demand an end to the two Tier workforce now.
There is never any money, unless of course, it is to pay for redundancy for higher level Managers to leave LUL before a Cap comes in on Redundancy Pay. There was plenty of money for that
What next?
The Tube Lines reps agreed to pull all these issues together and they either get resolved by October or we are back into dispute. Once next weeks talks at Acas are concluded then the reps will be call back and a full report and discussion will occur. Any offers or update will be sent out to our members first and you will need to let your reps know your views at that stage. Hopefully we can report progress and success. if not then our members will need to let us know what action they wish to take to take our demands forward.
In short, it’s time to give us our money and give us a TfL Pension and that time is NOW