LU says: Posts will be reduced by around 800 (including 150 managers, administrators and support managers) . Of the remaining 650 posts, we expect around 250 people in frontline station roles will be displaced once we have taken account of vacancies. Those affected will move to the reserve roster on their current group and we expect that within 18 months they will move back to a main roster.

The reality is:

• The phrase "once we have taken account of vacancies" means that management estimate 250 will be displaced to over-establishment on the group reserve after the other 400 have been displaced from their current location and grade to a location and grade they would not have voluntarily chosen to do. ie. many more than 250 staff will be displaced.
• The statement that staff will move to the reserve roster on their current group refers to a proposal currently under discussion, which has not yet been agreed, and for which much detail has not been revealed.
• Management have not guaranteed that after displacement, you will remain in your current grade. SAMFs could end up as CSAs, with earnings protected for only a limited period.
• Initially you may be displaced to over-establishment on group reserve, but within 18 months you could be moved to a station or group anywhere on the network. Remember two and a half years ago when LU forcibly displaced staff from Rickmansworth to locations all over the system, breaking their promises and their own agreements.
• There is no such thing as a 'reserve roster'. Reserve station staff are not on a roster: they have unpredictable duties, which are often changed at short notice, and which make it very hard to plan your life outside work.
• Displacement from a rostered to a reserve position is a serious deterioration of your working conditions.
• Moreover, reserves work over an often-large number of stations (which will become larger still under management's planned reorganisation of station groups). So displacement from a rostered to a reserve position could add hours per week to the time that you travel to and from work ie. your own time. (eg. If you are a rostered CSA at Ealing Broadway and your job is scrapped as LU plans, you could be working as far away as Shepherd's Bush.)

LU says: We have already placed all Centurion managers and administrators in roles and we are working with the remaining four support managers to find roles.

The Reality Is:

• Not one manager will be downgraded and put on protection of earnings.
• Not one Centurion manager will have to work any extreme shifts or any weekends as a result of these job cuts.
• Those who wanted to leave the company were given huge sums of money in redundancy payments, which are not being offered to frontline staff.

LU says: There will be no impact on safety or customer service.

• All stations will continue to have staff rostered at all times of the traffic day.
• We are not changing the arrangements for supervision
• All stations that currently have ticket office services will continue to do so (with the exception of Cannon Street which is undergoing redevelopment)
• Ticket office opening times are being reduced but only in line with customer demand.

The Reality is:

• Fewer staff will increase the risk for all users of the Tube -passengers and employees.
• A group of disabled people's organisations has written to the Mayor objecting to the cuts in staffing levels because disabled passengers would not get the help they need to travel around London.
• There will be more harmful anti-social behavior and assaults.
• Equipment checks and station inspections will be less frequent.
• There will be fewer staff to deal with more ticketing issues as a result of less ticket office availability.
• Supervisors will have to spend more time working on gatelines, platforms and dealing with ticketing issues and less time supervising their station.
• Stations will have a ticket office which will be closed for substantial periods due to the axing of 800 jobs.
• Customers demand a staffed ticket office, not posters telling them to go somewhere else and buy their tickets. LU is deliberately driving passengers away from stations for ticket purchases and asking our members to take the flack in resolving any subsequent ticketing issues.
• LU's published proposed rosters show cuts to platform/SATS duties, which means that at busy times of day, drivers who are now assisted by station staff in knowing when it is safe to close the doors and leave, will now have to make that decision alone - any mistake or incident, and the driver's job could be on the line.
• LU does plan to change the arrangements for station supervision. It plans to introduce 'proportional reserve' supervision on two groups, breaking the current practice where all reserve Supervisors are employed at the highest grade of Supervisors on their group. And it plans to change many Supervisors' rosters, and to make supervisors carry out platform, gateline and ticket office duties while also supervising the station!

LU says: We have to make these changes and so any industrial action would be pointless.

The reality is:

• LU does not have to make these changes to save the £16 million pounds the company says these job cuts will give it.
• RMT tabled a series of alternative cost-saving proposals, including the introduction of a maximum wage to curb fat-cat pay, and stopping paying commission to outside agencies to sell our tickets for us. We also asked LU to open up the books so the unions can identify further cost-saving measures. LU said no.
• Industrial action is not 'pointless', it is necessary - unless management see sense and withdraw these job cuts. For months, LU has refused to even discuss with your unions whether to cut these jobs, insisting only on meaningless 'consultation' on how to cut them. Effective industrial action will put pressure on them to start serious talks with the unions, and to rethink their irrational, unsafe, unnecessary, damaging job-cutting plans.