UNSTAFFED TUBE STATIONS HIT HOME

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2017 :: RMTnews 8 RMT has slammed London Underground management for allowing London’s tube stations to descend into chaos as a result of unjustified job cuts. The union had warned tube bosses again and again that the swingeing job cuts made earlier this year would leave many stations unstaffed and lead to the incident happened at Latimer Road where it took a passenger with a mobile phone to let London Underground know that a schoolchild had been wandering across electrified track while trains run. In many areas even the legal minimum staffing numbers cannot be maintained without rest-day working. Shortage of cover means stations are kept open at the cost of short notice changes to duty and constant changes of duty patterns when working cover weeks. A mixture of early, late and night turns in one five day week is not unusual. This means that as well as running stations with fewer staff there are far more ‘managers’ amongst those left, who are pressured to carry out non-operational work instead of being available on the stations. RMT general secretary Mick Cash warned that London’s tube stations had been operating on the basis of members’ goodwill and now that members were refusing to work six day weeks and additional hours the system was collapsing. He was also furious that tube management were now spending huge sums to maintain the pretence that stations are properly staffed. “London Underground has given non-operational staff a fraction of the training that station assistants get but claims this qualifies them to replace fully trained staff during industrial disputes. “These ‘travel ambassadors’ are being offered up to three times the rate for a shift that would be paid to a station assistant. “You just could not make it up, London Underground management paid severance packages to around 900 experienced station supervisors and ticket clerks and now they are offering unqualified admin staff and managers up to £250 a shift to avoid stations closing due to lack of staff. “Instead of throwing good money after bad, London Underground needs to recruit and fully train station staff to replace those they have cut”. RMT is demanding an immediate recruitment campaign and the restoration of jobs that were cut in London Underground’s reorganisation earlier this year. The name given by London Underground to new tube staffing arrangements Fit for the Future also include giving every grade roles that were previously done by the grade above, ie an unpaid promotion. Customer info points go unanswered as many station control rooms are now unstaffed and fire control panels, lift alarms and crucial communication lines are all based in the unstaffed control rooms. According to the company report into the Canning Town incident last year it was unclear as to who was performing what role, there was a lack of familiarity with local incident management processes and no liaison between stakeholders as defined within the Control and Congestion Emergency Plan (CCEP). Canning Town operates with a zero numbers staffing level and communications from NSCC were impaired due to the noise and no instruction was given to stop the DLR dispatching passengers at Canning Town Further chaos has been created by the mass displacement of staff. Ticket clerks with years of experience at one location have been put in charge, as station supervisors, of Euston, Kings Cross or Victoria overnight while others have been moved to lone working locations in outer zones. At least a third of all station staff have been moved. Some 600 continue to face the prospect of a further displacement anytime in the next three or four years. RMT won a 30-minute limit to displacement and the company agreed to negotiate a policy to manage this. However, they have now imposed their own arrangements, which give staff no effective say in where they might end up. UNSTAFFED TUBE STATIONS HIT HOME Passenger wanders onto track at unstaffed tube station Latimer Road