London Underground Ltd

Bakerloo and Central line drivers to take action over “detrainment” carriage checking

Following a substantial ballot in favour of taking industrial action over London Underground’s removal of detrainment staff, leaving Bakerloo and Central Line drivers to take trains into depots and sidings without staff on hand physically checking that all passengers are off the train, tube union RMT has agreed to call the following industrial action short of a strike:-

Please find below the successful resolutions passed at the 2012 National Conference of Station and Associated Grades and the appropriate General Grades Committee decision for each resolution.

FATIGUE – STATION & REVENUE GRADES (HSR/)

Resolution

On Wednesday19th December all 33 agency staff working on the Wembley Central group received an early Christmas present. They were informed by the company they work for, Trainspeople, that their contract with London Underground would be terminated on the 16th January and there would be no more work for them on stations after that. That’s just four weeks for people to find new jobs over the Christmas period. Some of these guys had worked on stations for over five years.

Transport union RMT said today that tube cleaners working for Initial and ISS will strike again over New Year in their fight for fair pay and workplace justice.

RMT cleaner members are instructed not to book on for any shifts that commence between:-

05:30 on Monday 31st December 2012 to 05:29 Wednesday 2nd January 2013.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said;

We note the correspondence from London Underground regarding the time allowance for detrainment of the S Stock. This union insists that all workers should have adequate time to carry out the tasks involved in their job.

We instruct the General Secretary to obtain reports as to progress on this issue, and on the issue of time for train preparation, through the Machinery of Negotiation and Consultation and to place these in front of us.

London Transport Regional Council, branches and representatives to be advised.

We note the correspondence from London Underground regarding its intention to deploy Circle and Hammersmith drivers to work on Metropolitan line track at Wembley Park sidings. The union totally rejects this, and will not accept any form of cross-line working.

Further, this adds to the evidence that LUL intends to use the introduction of the new ‘S’ stock to reduce maintenance frequencies and to deploy drivers, service control staff and others across more than one line. This threatens jobs, safety and service standards. We instruct the General Secretary to:

We note the correspondence from London Underground Ltd advising the launch of a new, annual, TfL-wide employee engagement survey called Viewpoint. We note that the results of the first of these is due in April 2013, and instruct the General Secretary to write to London Underground Ltd and TfL seeking their confirmation that no changes to our members’ conditions of employment that are not agreed with this union will be announced or imposed before the results are available.

We note the report from our Regional Organiser on this issue.

We remain concerned that the employer has reached agreement with just one union, and do not accept the explanation from the company that it did this because TSSA raised the issues with it first. We instruct the General Secretary to ensure that this is raised at the next Company Council meeting.

We note the resolution from our Neasden branch, and that the Metropolitan line upgrade is now complete. We place on record our recognition of the work of our Upgrades representatives on this over the last few years. All issues for negotiation and consultation should now be dealt with through the established machinery rather than the Upgrades set-up.

We instruct the General Secretary to:

1. write immediately to London Underground Ltd seeking the company’s confirmation that this will take place, to place the reply in front of us, and to monitor the situation.