When is "500" not "500"? When it's 150.

Posted in Tubeworker's blog on ,

LU's bulletin issued following the conclusion of Acas talks (see below) is completely misleading. Their headline figure is that they "will recruit 500 new staff into stations this year", but as they admit immediately afterwards, only 150 of these will be additional. 350 of the jobs will be the natural turnover that LU always recruits to cover natural wastage (people retiring or leaving the job, moving jobs, being promoted, etc.).

So the offer amounts to: 150 additional jobs. That's only a fraction of the 900-odd jobs they cut as part of "Fit for the Future". And a significant proportion of those 150 will be CSA2 positions, who can't perform safety critical tasks but who represent a massive saving for the company as they're paid £7,000 less than CSA1s!

So in terms of fully safety-trained staff who can perform the full range of tasks required on the station, it's a lot less than 150.

LU say they'll "double recruitment", but without increasing the establishment - i.e., inserting additional jobs into rosters - the rate of recruitment won't change much.

They say they've agreed to a "detailed review", but this was agreed to months ago, when "Fit for the Future" was implemented, so is hardly part of a new offer.

Offering "increased promotional opportunities" is all well and good, but this doesn't address the fundamental issue that there simply aren't enough staff on stations to run things safely.

If LU want to resolve the dispute, they need to make a serious offer to reinstate hundreds of jobs at CSA1 grade and above, and move towards the consolidation of the CSA2 grade into the CSA1 grade.

The job cuts made under "Fit for the Future" equated to nearly 20% of the frontline workforce. How can the company justify this? Have our stations become 20% smaller? Are there 20% fewer passengers? 20% fewer trains?

No. Footfall is increasing. The workload is going up. So why are jobs being cut?

That's the essence of this strike. Don't fall for LU's spin.

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Comments

Submitted by neitherwashing… on Sun, 08/01/2017 - 00:28

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away...

...LU had a decent number of RCIs to protect the company's revenue. 237 in fact.

Today there are less than 160 and the company is losing £60 million a year on fare evasion. While there are more fare dodgers than ever and they have left us with fewer staff to manage gatelines than ever there are also fewer RCIs than ever to protect our fare income and us poor sods on the gatelines.

If they want to save £200 million quid a year maybe start by getting RCIs in to fill the vacancies and start staffing gatelines properly?

And why haven't they filled the vacancies that have accumulated over the last 9 years? Maybe to leave a little bunce in to pay for the pathetic offer of 150 jobs out of the 838 they axed just last year and at SAMF money or less while the proper Supervisor equivalent role of RCI lies vacant.

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