TUBE UNION RMT says that while strikes loom on London Underground middle managers have asked LUL Chief Operating Officer “How am I supposed to convince staff to break a strike/OT ban when I completely agree with many of the issues raised by the RMT?”
 
A leaked record of an “Area Managers Briefing” where senior Tube bosses met with area and line managers has exposed the chaos at London Underground stations following over 800 job cuts as part of LULs ‘Fit for the Future’ reorganisation that resulted in the closure of ticket offices on every station on the tube network.
 
Mick Cash, RMT General Secretary said,
 
“Tube unions have been warning LUL for two years that stations cannot function after so many job cuts. Now their own middle managers are telling them the same.”
 
RMT is accusing senior Tube bosses of risking passengers’ safety in order to try and avoid stations closing due to lack of staff.
 
“Instead of addressing a chronic lack of staff Tube bosses are ordering office workers and senior managers with no operational experience to cover the jobs of trained station staff after one day courses. We have seen people in jeans and trainers breaking safety rules as they try to cover roles that they are simply not qualified to do”, Mick added.
 
Tube unions are imposing an overtime ban on stations at present. As a result senior managers are having to cover for staff shortages on gatelines and platforms. While London Underground claims to be saving money they are paying managers and office workers bonuses of up to three times the cost of a customer service assistant’s wage to cover their roles.
 
RMT is now considering dates to take strike action in this increasingly bitter dispute over jobs, grading and forced transfers as a result of the closure of all ticket offices and associated reorganisation.
 
RMT has now released minutes of a management meeting between LUL Directors and middle managers. In the minutes area managers, who are responsible for all aspects of a group of up to seven stations, are quoted as saying:
 
“None of the top leadership team have ever been an ACTUAL operational manger in LU. Do you really think there is a sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge?
 
Doesn’t having Area Managers (£65k) regularly having to personally keep a station open in place of a CSA (£30k) clearly show that Fit for the Future was a disaster?
 
Mark Wild (LULMD) was quoted at a Managing our Stations event saying we’d cut too far and the model wasn’t working, but aren’t the same people that designed the model doing the review?
 
If you took a straw poll of the room what proportion do you think would take Voluntary severance now? I'd guess about 50%. How do you fix it?
 
Isn’t Steve’s (Steve Griffiths LUL COO) acceptance that there will be a mandate for action ‘as usual’ (Referring to RMT’s ballot for industrial action) an indictment that we’re getting it wrong all the time, or more often than not?
 
“How am I supposed to convince staff to break a strike/OT ban when I completely agree with many of the issues raised by the RMT?”

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