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Dear Aslef Member

We are writing to you as a fellow Train Operators to ask you to support our strike action which will take place from June 9th to June 11th. We are not asking that you leave Aslef to join the RMT; all we are asking is that during this dispute, members of both unions stick together. After all, we have a lot more in common with each other than we do with LUL management. LUL’s boss, Boris Johnson, has a deep seated political hatred for all unions and an ideological aim of seeing us broken on the Underground. We cannot afford to allow this to happen.

Industrial relations under the previous Mayor of London, whilst not ideal, were a lot better than they are with the current administration. All over London Underground, members of both unions are facing unprecedented attacks on our conditions; bullying, harassment and victimisation by management are on the rise; management are ignoring policies and tearing up agreements. This won’t be stopped by ignoring it.

We are also, as a grade, in danger of sleepwalking into a 5 year cycle of wage cuts in real terms. LUL claims that because of uncertainty in the world’s economy we need a 5 year deal to provide stability: this is the economic theory of the lunatic asylum! If none of the world’s so-called experts know what is going to happen in the next 5 months why should we be tied down to a massive 5 year deal? It is also no coincidence that a 5 year deal takes us beyond the London Olympics.

We don’t know why your Trade Union leaders have so far failed to challenge LUL on its proposals. They may believe that if they wait long enough Gerry Duffy, the LUL employee relations director, will have a change of heart. The problem here is that Duffy is no longer in charge – Johnson is. And while your leadership is waiting, the management is preparing for an all-out assault on your wages and conditions. We in the RMT don’t believe we can afford to wait any longer – we have to take them on to protect what we have.

We realise that losing money through strike action is something that nobody wants, but the alternative – to allow LUL and the Mayor to get away with wholesale assaults on wages and conditions - will be far more costly in the long term. We urge you to support us by joining RMT for the duration of the strike - that way you are legally protected from any management victimisation. Train operators on the Vic Line have shown that members of both unions working together can give LUL a bloody nose; imagine what we can achieve by members of all unions standing shoulder to shoulder across the combine!

UNITY is STRENGTH – SUPPORT the STRIKE!

Yours, in solidarity

Vaughan Thomas Bill O’Dowd Dean O’Hanlon

RMT Trains Functional Council Representatives