Pay

From General Secretary Bob Crow

I write to advise you that despite London Underground announcing yesterday that a deal has been reached for Train Drivers during the Olympic Games period, RMT has not agreed to this deal; and as such your RMT Representatives’ registered a failure to agree at the Trains Functional Council meeting. I can confirm that RMT reject this deal.

Please find attached a 'Special Edition' of London Calling newsletter reporting on the 2011 Pay and 2012 Olympics rewards claims

In this edition

ASLEF/LU Olympics “deal” turns out to be a marathon for drivers.

To the shock of every driver on the combine the ASLEF/Management alliance has cooked up behind closed doors a so called ‘Olympics deal’. At the heart of this deal is the ripping up of our hard earned driving parameters that form our Train’s Framework Agreement. In essence, ASLEF/Management want to run a 21st Century railway with 19th Century terms and conditions.

Download the attached pdf to read the latest edition, or if you have a modern browser you can see it by clicking 'read more.'

Your pay rise should at least keep pace with - and preferably exceed - the rising cost of living.

The fact is that the cost of living regularly rises beyond the rate of inflation and living standards suffer as a result. Below is an example of increases:-

While our employers expect us to accept pay "rises" that are in some cases below inflation, and in others just fractionally above, here is what TfL, London Underground and Crossrail bosses are "earning" (Total remuneration excluding pension contributions, 2010/11) :

• Peter Hendy, Commissioner: £332,276
• Steve Allen, Managing Director, Finance: £268,982
• Mike Brown, Managing Director, London Underground: £285,230
• Howard Carter, General Counsel: £219,156
• Leon Daniels, Managing Director, Surface Transport: £97,000
  

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the agreement from Transport for London that staff recently transferred from London Underground will receive the same pay award as other TfL employees, receiving a rise of between 6% and 7.5%. We endorse our Regional Organiser’s recommendation that we accept this.

This offer underlines the inadequacy of other pay offers in companies either owned or contracted/franchised by TfL, such as London Underground and Alstom Metro Trains.

We therefore instruct the General Secretary to:

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

We note the revised offer from London Underground. The only difference between this and the previous offer is that it includes a minimum pay rise of 2% for years 2 to 5. Although this is welcome, and addresses one of our grounds for rejecting the previous offer, it does not address our other objections, which are as follows:

• The offer of 5% for this year is still below the February RPI figure of 5.5% and is thus a real-terms pay cut.

General Grades Committee decision:

We note the latest offer from Alstom Metro Trains:
• year 1: 4% increase on basic pay
• year 2: 4% increase on basic pay
• up to £400 Olympic bonus
• proposals on travel costs and appraisal interviews

We note that this offer does not meet our claim or our members’ aspirations, as it:
• is below RPI for this year
• may well be below RPI for next year
• compares badly to other pay awards in the region