Tubeworker's blog

Defend Ill-Health Pensions

Make no mistake - the threat to dilute your right to an ill-health pension is a serious one.

At the moment, if you become too unwell to continue in your current job, your employment can be terminated on medical grounds and you will get a 10-year enhancement on your pension and no reduction for...

Bakerloo Lone Working: Vote YES For Action

RMT is now balloting members on the Bakerloo line to stop management imposing lone working. Drivers, detrainment staff and North Group stations reserve staff will all get a vote, and should all vote YES for industrial action.

While LUL claim to put safety first and to be customer-focused, the...

Rushing Through Re-Licensing

We were recently telling you about under-staffing causing problems with getting drivers re-licensed. Seems this affects other grades too.

Out on the Barkingside group, managers have been trying it on with staff, telling them that the company has "done away with" the requirement for 28 days' notice...

Pest Control

The DLR area at Bank has a constant problem with mice - which we could just about live with, so long as the pest control contractor removed the dead bodies within a few hours of the trap catching them. But if, say, a couple of mice are caught at the weekend, and the contractor doesn't actually turn...

What Are They Up To?

Following the recent successful RMT dispute with Metronet, workers who were going to be transferred to Bombardier are not going to be any more.

So why is Metronet asking them to sign an agreement opting out of their TUPE rights? There should be no need for any workers to sign away rights guaranteed...

Trail of Destruction

Metronet gets most of the headlines for incompetence, but let us not forget TubeLines.

  • Last week at Chalk Farm, contractors working overnight booked off and left the signals failing at the start of traffic.
  • At Warren Street, overnight contractors concreted over a trainstop, shorting out a track...

Connect? Hello?

Connect is still causing chaos. The latest is that a DMT at Kings Cross called Victoria line control, but got through to the Met instead! And this is the system we are supposed to rely on for safety-critical messages!

Wot No Track Licence?

Tubeworker hears a rumour that management are looking at the possibility of CSAs not being track licensed. The phrases "saving money", "cutting corners" and "deskilling" come to mind. There are obvious implications for health and safety, especially for dealing with incidents and emergencies, where...

Special Requirements?

Remember the special events team? It has resurfaced as the 'special requirements team', and management want it to be paid for by the ticket office closures.

Excuse us, the 'special events team' was part of the stations shorter working week deal, and we (more than) paid for it then. LUL, obviously...

Save Our Ticket Offices

LUL is determined to press ahead with its ticket offices cuts and closures, despite the devastating effect on both customer service and our working conditions. Staff at many stations will now have seen that their station is in the firing line and will know that we need to fight off this attack. If...

Defend Our Depot

As LUL moves on with plans to open the new Jubilee line depot at Stratford, the future for North Greenwich is unclear. The best option for drivers would be to keep the NOG depot, even at a reduced size, as it would avoid displacing people and would give drivers more options as to where to work -...

Save Our Omniscans!

Note to LUL management ... the word 'upgrade' suggests that a station's facilities are to be improved. Hence, removing the Omniscan cameras from Bank/Monument - that's the ones you can spin around in all directions and zoom in on anything in view - is a bad idea.

Anyone would think that upgrade...

Who Abolished Slavery?

This is the full version of an article an edited version of which will be included in the next issue of Tubeworker

Our top politicians are feeling very smug in 2007, the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade - when the buying and selling of slaves was made illegal in British law. As...

Permit to Enter?

A TubeLines Site Person in Charge accepted a forged Permit to Enter to a machine chamber at Old Street. The Station Supervisor picked up on it, and the unauthorised person left the station, but TubeLines did not query their procedures on how this had come about.

Under the new Rule Book, Station...

RMT Executive Abandons Rule Book Dispute

Yesterday, RMT's General Grades Committee (the Executive minus the Shipping representatives) voted to cancel the union's dispute with the employers over the Rule Book, using a legal hitch as a pretext. The union has voluntarily abandoned a battle before it had even really started. It is a shocking...

New Metronet Crisis Threatens Jobs

Metronet continues to spiral towards disaster, and has revealed new plans to make its workforce pay the price.

  • 290 administrative and middle management jobs are to go.
  • Up to 200 temporary and agency posts will also go.
  • The Infraco has frozen recruitment.

Metronet claims that it needs to cut the...

Licences Expired

From 23rd May 2007, the Bakerloo line had five drivers whose Safety Critical Licences have expired, and who have also gone past their 28-day extensions. By management's own admission, they are therefore not qualified to drive trains in passenger service.

So what is management's answer? Take them...

Can We "Live With" This Sick System?!

RMT's latest Official Circular copies to members a letter from the union to LUL management on various industrial relations issues. In amongst comments on later running, redeployment policy and other issues, there lies a rather alarming statement about the Attendance Policy ... "Even though we have...

Danger: Don't Touch

We all know that cleaning standards are not great on the Underground (not because of the cleaners themselves, but because of cowboy contractors and management's general disregard for safety standards). But few of us would have considered that we might risk facial paralysis just by touching some kit...

RMT Rule Books meeting - report

On Thursday (17th May), 50 RMT reps and activists turned up to a meeting to discuss how the union should fight LUL’s imposition of its lethal new Rule Book. With LUL going full steam ahead, and little response from the other unions, much of our hope for defeating this attack lies with an effective...

East Finchley: RMT/ASLEF Unity

The local RMT and ASLEF reps at East Finchley depot have produced a joint leaflet telling drivers about Driving Parameters and their rights at work. This follows a joint newsletter produced by the two union reps last year.

ASLEF's hierarchy have frowned on this, due to their silly, sectarian policy...

Ticket Office Closures: the gory details

The ticket offices LUL proposes to close are:

Barkingside, Becontree, Boston Manor, Buckhurst Hill, Cannon Street, Canons Park, Chesham, Chiswick Park, Chorleywood, Croxley, Debden, East Putney, Fairlop, Hornchurch, Goldhawk Road, Ickenham, Latimer Road, Mansion House, Mill Hill East, Moor Park...

Defend TrackWork/GrantRail Workers

What do you get for working faster and harder than you need to? The sack - if you're on the GrantRail/TrackWork contract with TubeLines, that is.

They were working to a 7-and-a-half year contract, but it was subject to annual review, and was completed in 3-and-a-half years. So, in the brave new...

New Rule Book: How Can We Defend Ourselves?

Come to the RMT mass meeting, Thursday 17th May, 18:00, Royal National Hotel

With LUL management about to impose their awful new Rule Book, the unions urgently need a strategy that can effectively defend their members against this threat to our safety and job security. The sad fact is that up until...

Protest: £7.20 for Cleaners Now!

  • £7.20 London Living Wage NOW
  • 28 days holiday minimum NOW
  • Free travel NOW
  • Cleaners to be directly employed

Various big cheeses will be gathering for a conference called 'London: the most successful world city?' Come and tell them about the disgrace of a 'world city's' railways being cleaned by...

Give Us Back Our Accident Books

Tubeworker has reported previously on LUL's removal of Accident Books from workplaces - which, disappointingly, it seems that the unions did nothing to prevent.

LUL claims that the EIRF system covers the legal requirement to have an Accident Book, and has persuaded the spineless HMRI to rubber...

Off The Premises

Victoria station needs asbestos removal, and management's plan is that the ticket office should be relocated to a Portakabin outside the mainline station upstairs for the duration of the works.

Station staff are, naturally, concerned that anyone working in the ticket office will be outside the...

Letter: Ticket Office Cuts

Dear Tubeworker

I visited the East End of the District Line and witnessed ticket offices only being allowed to open in the peak and expected to open to give information at other times. Guess what information Joe Public wanted? Can you please sell me a ticket? As the answer was 'no' and a load of...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.