TUBE STRIKE OVER STATION STAFFING

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2017 :: RMTnews 9 Strike action over Tube station staffing and safety went ahead earlier this month after London Underground refused to to tackle the growing crisis on the network. Over 3,000 RMT station staff members were balloted for action over the impact on safety from axing nearly 900 front-line workers alongside the closure of tube ticket offices. The cuts have left safety on a knife edge with the incidents at Canning Town and North Greenwich throwing the spotlight on dangers which are being worsened by the cuts process. The strike action follows revelations that Tube middle managers have told LUL Chief Operating Officer that the union is right. A leaked record of an ‘Area Managers Briefing’ where senior Tube bosses met with area and line managers has exposed the chaos at London Underground stations following job cuts as part of LULs ‘Fit for the Future’ reorganisation that resulted in the closure of ticket offices on every station on the tube network. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that Tube unions had been warning LUL for two years that stations cannot function after so many job cuts and now their own middle managers are telling them the same. He said that the union would not stand by while safety was compromised off the back of cash-led cuts to staffing levels that the union had warned would have a serious, lasting and corrosive impact for staff and passengers alike. “RMT members on London Underground stations see every day the toxic impact of the job cuts programme and they are reporting back that it is horrific. “It has now also been shown that at management level there is agreement with the union that the cuts have been a disastrous mistake. “With the constant overcrowding on stations and platforms it is only a matter of time before there is a major tragedy if we don’t act decisively. Our dispute is about taking action to haul back the cuts machine and put safety back at the top of the agenda,” he said. TUBE STRIKE OVER STATION STAFFING “How am I supposed to convince staff to break a strike/OT ban when I completely agree with many of the issues raised by RMT?” LUL manager Minutes of a management meeting between LUL Directors and middle managers who are responsible for all aspects of a group of up to seven stations who are quoted as saying: “None of the top leadership team have ever been an ACTUAL operational manger in LU. Do you really think there is a sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge? Doesn’t having Area Managers (£65k) regularly having to personally keep a station open in place of a CSA (£30k) clearly show that Fit for the Future was a disaster? Mark Wild (LULMD) was quoted at a Managing our Stations event saying we’d cut too far and the model wasn’t working, but aren’t the same people that designed the model doing the review? If you took a straw poll of the room what proportion do you think would take Voluntary severance now? I'd guess about 50%. How do you fix it? Isn’t Steve’s (Steve Griffiths LUL COO) acceptance that there will be a mandate for action ‘as usual’ (Referring to RMT’s ballot for industrial action) an indictment that we’re getting it wrong all the time, or more often than not? “How am I supposed to convince staff to break a strike/OT ban when I completely agree with many of the issues raised by the RMT?”