TUBE STRIKE

4 On the eve of strike action on the tube this month RMT urged London Mayor Sadiq Khan to reverse the managed decline of London Underground and protect pensions, passenger safety and halt job cuts. Over 10,000 RMT members took strike action across the tube joining teachers and other education workers in NEU and UCU, civil servants in PCS and Prospect and junior doctors in the biggest day of strike action in Britain for many years. Transport for London has refused to take pension attacks off the table and continues to impose cuts as £600 million is not yet budgeted for. As well as the 600 station job cuts, which are leaving stations unable to cope as rosters are imposed, massive productivity plans are now on the table for trains members. All agreements are under review, which could lead to much less certainty on shift patterns, an increased working day and an attack on work life balance. Now LUL threatens to redeploy members into lower paid jobs with only temporary protection of earnings. On several engineering functions management has started a re- organisation that will delete a number of jobs. Members have been told that they will have to be assessed for other roles and may be displaced into a lower paid job. TfL’s financial crisis is entirely created by the government. When Boris Johnson was London Mayor, LUL still received an operational subsidy of around £100 million in today’s prices. Johnson, Mayor Khan and LUL management all supported the idea of self- financing with no subsidy despite the fact that no similar metro system anywhere in the world operates on this basis. Restoring that subsidy back to 2016 levels would provide the £600 million that TfL is still looking to cut. In his letter to the London Mayor, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch made clear that London Underground managers were imposing new rosters across tube stations which are based on cutting 600 station staff jobs. "In January, I wrote to you raising my serious concerns about the safety consequences of these cuts. Because they are now so short-staffed, managers appear to be mis- using waivers in order to override agreed minimum safe staffing levels at Tube stations. "This means that stations are now opening with too few or, in some cases, no staff. I asked for a moratorium on these station staff cuts while an investigation took place, yet managers are proceeding with the use of the new rosters. I repeat my call for you to instruct LU managers to halt these cuts pending meaningful discussions with RMT. "Similarly, the threat to our members’ pensions remain live, in spite of the fact that both you and TfL know there is no need for the reforms being TUBE STRIKE London Underground members take action in defence of jobs, pensions and agreements PROTEST: RMT assistant general secretary John Leach addresses strike rally in Trafalgar Square