TUBE AND TFL WORKERS TO RE-BALLOT

R MT is re-balloting nearly 10,000 members across London Underground (LUL) and Transport for London (TfL) for strike action in separate disputes centred on jobs, pay, breaches of disciplinary and attendance agreements. Up to 3000 jobs are under threat across the Tube and TfL. The re-run of the strike ballots follows a provocative legal challenge by LUL to ballots last month, which nonetheless showed a rock-solid five-to-one majority in favour of action. RMT is re-balloting all members at LUL, including former Metronet staff, as well as staff at TfL. Balloting begins on May 14 and closes on May 28. On London Underground, bosses are threatening to tear up an agreement aimed at safeguarding jobs, and have refused to rule out compulsory redundancies. TfL is also threatening compulsory redundancies as part of a £2.4 billion cuts package. LUL has also refused to budge from an unacceptable five-year pay offer that gives no real-terms increase for four years, and which could even see pay cut, and there have been so many complaints of breaches of disciplinary and attendance procedures they appear co- ordinated. TfL has so far failed to table any pay offer at all. LUL management have been breaching the agreed disciplinary and attendance procedures and have encouraged aggressive and punitive behaviour by local managers. “Our members are furious that a democratic vote for action just a month ago was sabotaged by a shameful legal challenge aimed at undermining the internal democracy of our trade union. Tube bosses have wasted time and money on lawyers when they knew very well that RMT would never tolerate this attack on our members and our organisation. The re-ballot will give our members a chance to express the depth of their anger,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said. “Despite the managements diversionary tactics it remains the case that after months of stonewalling LUL has tabled what is at best a five-year pay freeze which it knows full well is totally unacceptable to RMT and its members. LUL managers appear to have been given the nod to unleash a fresh round of bullying. “LUL’s own ‘Valuing Time’ study acknowledges that our members’ productivity is at an all-time high, with passenger numbers up to record-breaking levels of four million a day. “We said from the start that our members, whether in LUL or TfL, would not be made to pay for the failure and greed of bankers and privateers, and that any attempt to impose compulsory redundancies would be met with a ballot for industrial action. We’ve balloted once and now we’ll ballot again and if LUL and TfL want to avoid confrontation they should withdraw the threat to jobs, take the pay issue seriously and start treating staff with the respect that they deserve,” Bob Crow said. RMT helpline 0800 3763706 :: may 2009 :: RMTnews 18 RMT RMT TV STATION V STATION NOW LIVE! NOW LIVE! RMT TV STATION NOW LIVE! at www.rmtv.org.uk TUBE AND TfL WORKERS TO RE-BALLOT R MT members on Wilts & Dorset, Southern Vectis and Blue Star are being balloted for strike action this month over new pension scheme arrangements. All three companies which employ the workers are part of the massively profitable Go-Ahead Group, which has unilaterally closed the company’s final- salary pension schemes to future new recruits. For those left in the schemes it is a move that makes it both likely that contributions will have to rise and that the schemes will not be viable in the long term. For those denied entry to the schemes it holds out the prospect of a worse standard of living in retirement, because the ‘money-purchase’ schemes offered in their place give nowhere near the same benefits – but it is cheaper for the company. Management say they can no longer afford the fund, but their contributions towards benefits are only 6.5 per cent – not that high for a good- quality final-salary scheme – while members’ contributions are bigger. In the year up to June 2008, Go Ahead Group made a pre-tax profit of £117 million and paid out £48 million in dividends to its shareholders, and in April this year the group announced that bus revenues were up once again as passenger numbers rose by nearly four per cent. The company are keen to close the scheme because with its inferior replacement its total contributions will plummet to just 4.25 per cent. As RMT News went to press the union was serving the company with a notice of a ballot and was urging members to return a yes vote for strike action. RMT CALLS FOR YES VOTE OVER PENSIONS ON GO AHEAD BUSES