Tube: unite all grades to fight the cuts

Submitted by AWL on 14 December, 2021 - 4:44
Tube exit

Abridged from the Tubeworker blog


The ballot of members in Transport for London (TfL) and London Underground (LU) being run by rail union RMT between 13 December and 10 January is on action against cuts to any grade’s jobs and conditions and to all our pensions. It is not just about six hundred station jobs at threat. Those
are just the first slice in a long series of cuts.

TfL management have finally shown their hand — or, more accurately, the first of many hands they intend to deal — over cuts to improve their finances after lockdown. Don’t think that grades other than station staff, first hit, have escaped a bullet. All are in line if workers don’t unite to defeat this.

The company claims that it could cut five or six hundred station staff without damaging customer service. Its arguments are laughable.

Apparently, we need fewer station staff because of lower passenger numbers due to increased working from home. But during the years when passenger numbers grew significantly, they did not increase staff, so how does a fall in number justify cutting them? In any case, they can not know to what extent numbers will recover after Covid impacts ease.

TfL also claim that cutting this many posts (more than one in ten station staff) will not affect the work-life balance of remaining staff. Pull the other one! Management has pledged that stations will be staffed throughout traffic hours and that minimum numbers will remain the same. It is simply not possible to do that without increasing the proportion of extreme turns. And increased workload has a negative effect on work-life balance even if your hours stay the same.

Management also claim that the rise in use of contactless payment means that passengers need less help. That will be news to station staff constantly dealing with passengers who need help with their contactless payment! In any case, we are there to help everyone, not just the confident, card-swiping, besuited commuter. And good luck with the “clampdown on fare evasion” with hundreds fewer staff!

Passengers will feel the impact if these cuts go ahead. Nearly every customer commendation is for a Customer Service Assistant (CSA), a worker in the first group management are threatening. CSAs help disabled passengers and people in distress. CSAs are first on the scene dealing with safety-critical incidents. Supervisors can not run stations without them.

Management plan to cut detrainment staff and to reduce platform duties. This would load yet more responsibility onto drivers and will lead to more incidents, with potentially serious consequences and drivers’ jobs on the line.

Everyone knows that the real reason for the cuts is the “financial crisis”.

The government is demanding that TfL makes cuts of at least half a billion pounds as a condition of bailing it out for another eighteen months — and TfL, instead of resisting this appalling coercion, is going along with it. (Tubeworker would also like to point out that the same government and TfL regularly accuse us of “holding London to ransom” when we strike — a phrase that fits their actions rather more accurately.)

Management hope that other grades will not rally to the defence of station jobs. Do not play their game. The union is balloting all of us because all of us are under attack. It’s a fight for every worker in every grade.

Comments

Submitted by AWL on Fri, 17/12/2021 - 13:18

Friday 17 December: the Central and Victoria Lines are on strike. Join pickets at White City, Seven Sisters or Brixton, from about 9.30pm.

Saturday 18 December: the Central, Victoria, Jubilee, Northern, and Piccadilly lines are on strike. Pickets at White City, Northfields, Stratford, Acton Town, Cockfosters, Arnos Grove, Seven Sisters, Brixton, Hainault, Leytonstone, Loughton, West Ruislip, Morden, Golders Green, East Finchley, High Barnet, Wembley Park, North Greenwich, Neasden. All day from about 4.30am - please visit when you can.

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