London Underground Job Cuts Dispute 2010-11

TUBE UNION RMT today repeated the demand for an end to the London Underground cuts programme as the system grinds towards the end of a week of chaos that has seen repeated failures on the Jubilee, Metropolitan, Central and Victoria Line’s as a combination of cuts, infrastructure failures and mismanagement from the top conspire to drag the network into a spiral of failure.

This morning the Jubilee Line went down due to fleet and signal failures and there was further disruption on the Metropolitan Line after it totally closed in yesterday evenings rush hour through the City.

The new issue of our 'RMT London Calling' newsletter urges members to defend trade union rights against anti-union laws and dismissals of RMT reps. It also gives a detailed update about our ongoing campaign against London Underground job cuts, and advertises RMT's coach to the anti-EDL protest in Luton on Saturday 5 February.

Click '1 attachment' / file name to download it.

New Stations Rosters - Minus Jobs!

London Underground’s new stations rosters - minus hundreds of jobs - are due to come in on 6 February. Staff will be expected to work even more anti-social hours with staffing levels so low that stations will struggle to cope. Ticket offices will be open for significantly shorter hours, causing huge extra workload for staff in the ticket hall and elsewhere around the station - and yet, despite LU’s claims, their numbers are being cut too.

RMT General Grades Committee decision:

That we note that London Underground has issued notices displacing full-time staff only within the group of stations in which they currently work, but has issued notices displacing part-time staff to locations beyond their current group of stations, in some cases some distance away. It also intends to alter the working hours of some part-time staff in a way that is detrimental to them. The company has also failed to adequately consider part-time workers in its Equality Impact Assessment. We believe that London Underground may be acting in breach of the Part-time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations.

TUBE UNION RMT today called for a full ORR investigation into breaches of safety on London Underground after the union’s safety reps revealed that stations along the Central Line were left unstaffed last night due to cuts-led staff shortages.

The news, coming just a week after a brutal assault at unstaffed West Finchey station, nails the lie, repeated by Mayor Boris Johnson and his senior officials on a regular basis that “no station will be left unstaffed at any time” as a result of their cuts.

I write to advise members that a joint meeting of RMT and TSSA was held on Wednesday 19th January 2011 to discuss the current job cuts dispute. It was agreed that we continue to take part in the ongoing review process and we will advise you of developments when the work of the reviews become clearer.

Bob Crow
General Secretary

The new issue of our 'RMT London Calling' newsletter explains that London Underground's victimisation of Eamonn Lynch, Arwyn Thomas and Peter Hartshorn is an act of hostage-taking against the union.

It also reports on the strike on Docklands Light Railway later this week, and reports in details on the up-to-date siutation with our fight against London Underground job cuts.

Click '1 attachment' / file name to download it. Click 'read more' to read the main article.

Your representatives report ...

Meetings so far have worked on separating the health and safety issues from the industrial relations issues which are contained within the collective grievances. This process took up until 12pm on Friday 14 January, after which reps and managers were due to sort out the timeframes to deal with the industrial relations content in the colective grievances.