London Underground Ltd

We welcome the imminent return of Power Services to London Underground following the termination of the Private Finance Initiative contract. We reaffirm our view that all contracted-out sections of London Underground should similarly be brought back in-house.

We instruct the General Secretary to obtain a report from the lead officer on the completion of this transfer, confirming that our members’ rights and conditions have been protected and itemising any outstanding issues.

That we note the ballot results are as follows:-

STRIKE ACTION

Total votes cast .......59...........

Number voting “Yes” ........53...........

Number voting “No” ........06..........

Spoilt Papers ........00...........

ACTION SHORT OF STRIKE ACTON

Total votes cast .......59...........

Number voting “Yes” ........56...........

Number voting “No” ........03..........

Spoilt Papers ........00...........

London Underground management have sewn further anger and disgust amongst staff as they effectively confirm that plans for cuts are not only real but are already being put into action. Their statement, far from "clarifying" matters, in a mixture of management jargon and avoidance of the real issues, de facto confirms that the axing of jobs and ticket offices is core to the LU management programme.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

On the day that secret plans for the alleged axing of thousands of crucial tube jobs was leaked by the TSSA union, RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “RMT has warned that the Government cuts of 12.5% to TFL budgets would result in thousands of job losses and now the numbers are being confirmed we are prepared to ballot across the Capital for strike action in defence of jobs and services.

Funding Cuts
We are appalled by the Chancellor's announcement of a 9% funding cut to the Department for Transport, including a 12.5% funding cut to Transport for London. This savage cut can only lead to attacks on jobs, conditions, service standards and safety on all TfL services: London Underground, London Overground, buses, DLR and others.

We believe that the union should not wait for the detail of these cuts to be announced, but should launch a campaign now, building on our previous work and based around:

Tube union RMT confirmed today that train crew members on the Victoria Line are to be balloted for strike action over a range of grievances that amount to a total breakdown in industrial relations:

• Forcing Drivers to work overtime. Drivers being made to start a duty which would result in them working beyond their finishing time.
• Failing to hold meetings requested by members such as flexible working requests, grievance hearings, and disciplinary appeal hearings.
• Trying to conduct meetings without the full level 1 rep in attendance.
  

Your RMT local and Tier 2 Reps have now met with management twice regarding the ‘Mexican stand off’ incidents at Mill Hill East. Senior signal engineers were also in attendance at this meeting.

These incidents occurred as Northern Line trains were routed in such a way that they were brought to stand, facing each other, on the same single line section of track.

A meeting took place on August 1st, between RMT Officials, RMT Central Line Representatives and senior LU management in an attempt to avert a ballot of all Central Line drivers due a breakdown in industrial relations on the line.

Relations between management and your industrial and safety representatives have worsened over the past 18 months or so until it has got to the stage where your union firmly believe that the Central Line management is out of control.

Senior Central Line managers seem to believe that LU policies and procedures, the Health and Safety at

RMT announces campaign of action to halt 12.5% London Transport cuts

TRANSPORT UNION RMT announced today that it will be mobilising a co-ordinated campaign, up to and including the use of industrial action, to halt massive cuts set to devastate transport services across the capital, smuggled through under the cloak of the Government’s spending review back in June.

We note the correspondence from London Underground Ltd and the report from our Regional Organiser. We are totally opposed to LUL’s stated intention to reduce night station supervisor cover, and introduce mobile or remote supervision of stations.

We share our RO’s belief that this is an all-out attempt to de-staff and weaken our agreements for all LUL station grades, which we must resist.