London Underground Job Cuts Dispute 2010-11

By James Wong McSweeney, RMT Regional Young Members' Officer:

On Wednesday 15th December at 10am a delegation from the RMT will present hundreds of signed postcards from passengers across London to the Mayor, Boris Johnson, calling for an end to the threatened jobs massacre. As part of this a protest has been called to raise awareness of what the reality of the jobs massacre will be and to call for the re-instatement of the three victimised reps: Arwyn Thomas; Eamonn Lynch; and Peter Hartshorn.

This resolution, submitted by LU Engineering branch, was carried unanimously by the November meeting of the Regional Council.

That this region fails to understand the logic of the talks at ACAS over the station job losses that have excluded our elected Regional Organiser and left the team at ACAS without an elected official to represent and negotiate for us all at these talks. We therefore call on this exclusion to be withdrawn and our Regional Organiser reinstated to these talks.

This resolution, submitted (and amended) by Finsbury Park branch, was carried by the November meeting of the Regional Council:

This Region calls upon the union to urgently campaign for an escalation of the action in the dispute regarding jobs and safety on LUL as already agreed at regional level in order to win the dispute.

We recommend that one of the days for action should be Saturday 18th December.

This resolution, submitted by Bakerloo branch, proposed by East Ham and seconded by LU Engineering, was carried by the November meeting of the Regional Council.

The LTRC congratulates all RMT and TSSA members for their solidarity and determination to resist the attacks on our job from the tube bosses and the Tory Mayor. We also place on record our thanks and sincere appreciation to those non members who respected our picket lines.

RMT and TSSA will be picketing around 100 stations, depots and other workplaces - some on Sunday evening, most on Monday throughout the day, starting in the early morning. Please come along and support us. The current list of pickets is below.

RMT members and supporters will be handing out these leaflets to the public during and after our strike on Sunday/Monday. You can also click '2 attachments' / file names to download and print your own copies.

A message from Steve Hedley, RMT Regional Organiser

The RMT strike action and action short of a strike is taking place after a legally held ballot. You may have seen an employee relations bulletin suggesting that you can get into trouble for going on strike or refusing to abide by the 5 pounds minimum top up policy, this is nonsense.

Regional Organiser Steve Hedley writes ...

I regret to inform you that despite our best efforts in negotiations at ACAS, talks have broken down due to management's refusal to compromise.The RMT delegation proposed that we should enter binding arbitration on the issue of the criterion for deciding on ticket office opening hours, a process where both sides put their arguments and an independent body decides on the merits of the case. In an action that betrays their lack of any solid justification for massive job cuts, management issued a press statement saying they will not go.

In ACAS talks today your Union together with TSSA tabled a new proposal to LU management which includes a recommendation for the suspension of industrial action if the management side agree to a twelve week suspension of the implementation of their station staffing cuts proposals to allow for a thorough station-by-station safety evaluation to take place.

IN TWO separate disputes over the victimisation of RMT London Underground activists the union announced today ballots for action in support of train operators Eamon Lynch and Arwyn Thomas.