Monday 15th June: Pay Talks 2014/15 were cancelled by management due to unforeseen circumstances.

Current Pay Talks – TfL offers £1 million ‘pot’ for all Bands 1-3
Your unions are talking with management about their pay proposals for 2014-15.  So far, TfL have offered £1 million to cover increases in pay for Bands 1-3 staff, which amounts to only 0.5% of the current pay bill for these grades. Make no mistake – this ISN’T a 0.5% pay rise; it won’t be distributed evenly, and under the imposed PfP arrangements, some staff in Bands 1-3 will receive NO INCREASE in base pay, only a one-off non-pensionable payment. However, TfL are currently refusing to give details of how any funds will be allocated across the workforce.

Your unions have made it clear to TfL that their offer of £1 million is below the current rate of inflation, and insufficient. We strongly believe that the pay rise for TfL staff should be the same as that given to London Underground. Staff in LU and Tube Lines have been offered an across the board increase of 0.75% for this year and an increase at the level of inflation for next year. This offer has been rejected as a real terms pay cut, and all four unions (ASLEF, TSSA, RMT, Unite) in LU are balloting for industrial action.
The rate of inflation does not take into account the higher cost of living in London, where the average house price is now £600,000, and across the South East. Real wages in the UK are rising elsewhere – latest predictions indicate that the annual rise will be 2.5-2.6% for April, and in the private sector 3.0-3.2%. Staffs in Network Rail – another public sector employer - were recently made a revised offer of 2% increase for this year and 2% for next year.

Fair Pay for ALL TfL Staff
It recently became public that TfL employs 412 staff on salaries over £100,000. The total annual pay bill for these staff – excluding significant bonus payments – is over £50 million! That means that these 412 staff are earning more than a quarter of the amount paid to ALL OTHER TfL EMPLOYEES!

Your unions have requested full disclosure of the total amount paid to senior staff in TfL and the amount paid for non-permanent labour (NPL), such as contractors and agency staff. TfL has refused to give this information which we believe is entirely unacceptable. If TfL is saying that any pay rise must be affordable then it is essential that all expenditure on staff – be they Bands 1-3, Bands 4 and above, or non-permanent – must be considered together, so that pay rises can be allocated fairly and consistently across all grades. We will continue to press TfL for this information, and use legal means if necessary.

Night Tube
TfL’s Night Tube is due to begin on 12 September, but there are several issues which remain unresolved regarding its implementation, and many outstanding safety concerns, including:

No minimum numbers in many stations, meaning an increase in lone-working, and some stations being unstaffed, despite LUL’s promise that would not be the case.
Ticket offices will not be open at night, and CSAs will be expected to cover gate-lines and deal with ticketing and other enquiries from the public.
Night Tube will run only 4 trains per hour, meaning that travellers will be hanging around stations for a longer, potentially in an inebriated state.
Virtually no stations running Night Tube have public toilet facilities, and few public conveniences will be open outside tube stations at night.

Many stations will only be part-open and LUL is now reneging on its commitment to provide fixed, lockable gates to secure non-operational areas. Instead, LUL is proposing less secure tensa-barriers, making it easier for people to access non-operational parts of the station where engineering work may be taking place.

There is an increased likelihood of vulnerable people using trains and/or stations as overnight accommodation. This issue has already been flagged up by BTP.
Union H&S reps have been constantly questioning LUL management regarding their plans for operating Night Tube, and the consequent difficulties it will create for staff to evacuate and control numbers as and when necessary. LUL’s responses so far have been evasive, unhelpful and lacking in clarity.
LU are seeking to seriously undermine the working practices of LU staff, and are seeking to rip-up negotiated agreements. In return, staff have been offered only two or three one-off payments of £250 in return for delivery of Night Tube. Again this has been rejected by all four unions representing staff in LU.

Night Tube will also impact upon the workload and working practices of staff in TfL – including those working in Surface, TPH, EOS, LSTCC, CCO and Visitor Information Centres. This has been raised with TfL management who have so far refused to discuss this impact – or to offer any payments to TfL staff who would be contributing to the implementation of Night Tube .

We believe that there needs to be a full analysis of the impact of Night Tube upon TfL staff, and a discussion about payments for successful delivery of Night Tube. We are currently looking for feedback from staff: Is your job one which could be affected by overnight running on the Tube? Let us know.

Workplace Pay Meetings in July
You unions will be hosting a series of workplace meetings for staff across TfL buildings between 13-24 July to discuss the pay offer for 2014-15. Release for staff to attend has been agreed. Members and non-members are welcome to attend, and dates will be circulated close to the time. Speak with your local union rep for more information.

Pensions impact – TfL Pensions Fund
The unions continue to press for a dedicated TfL pensions impact meeting. There is no doubt that PfP damages your pension. TfL operates a final salary fund. The amount you will draw is based on your pensionable pay and PfP caps the amount that you earn in your pensionable pay by replacing consolidated pay rises with separate bonuses which are not added to your salary going forward. We should also remember that a pension is a form of deferred pay, and anything that reduces your pension is therefore a form of further pay cut. Staff in Bands 1-3 are impacted by PfP in adverse but different ways according to whether they joined the TfL pension before or after 1 April 1989. If you have concerns about PfP impacts upon your TfL pension feel free to contact the TfL Pension Fund.

CONTACT OUR REGIONAL ORGANISER FOR MORE INFORMATION

John Leach - J.Leach@rmt.org.uk

If you are not already a member of a trade union, then strengthen our hand in negotiating on our behalf by joining a union today.

Please feel free to share this information with your workplace colleagues.

Published 16th June 2015 by the Company Council Reps of the Joint TfL Trades Unions.

Unions Together News June 2015