August edition of RMT UP front

Click on the link to download the latest edition of RMT Up front.

The lead article follows:

Time to join the picket lines!

After months of talks, talks and more talks we have finally arrived at the point where our union is asking us to take industrial action in defence of jobs. This is not something that is asked lightly; but with a mandate for strike action from RMT members it is a question which can no longer be avoided and to which the answer must be emphatically in the affirmative!

Some Train Operators are asking what it has to do with us. They are saying these station job cuts have no effect on me and my family. They say that a global crisis of capitalism means we all have to share the pain. We shouldn’t rock the boat (or the train!) These train operators are being misled by LUL into a false sense of security.
LUL management have been intent on splitting the workforce in an attempt to weaken us. It is no coincidence that they are doing away with team talk – they don’t want us to see ourselves as a team anymore: we are trains they are stations, hang them out to dry is the message. You remember we had “Time to Talk”? Well now it’s “Time to Shut Up and Listen.” The recent Valuing Time seminars were nothing more than poorly disguised propaganda tools to soften us up for the coming assault on our conditions.
It’s not just an ideological push by LUL, of course; though they have long been dismayed by the sense of solidarity and comradeship engendered by the RMT. But removing rostered team talks reduces the number of T/Ops needed across the combine. Following swiftly on from the reduction of pool sizes and slashing the number of rostered spare turns caused by the 2009 Agreement there are now close to 300 “excess” T/Ops on LUL. How long do you believe LUL can sustain that level of excess with TfL bean counters breathing down their necks?
We have a choice: we can allow them to continue their salami slicing down at 55 Broadway or we can tell LUL that they have already gone too far and that we will not allow them to go any further with their slash and burn tactics. They want to cut 800 jobs as if it is nothing at all; as if it will make no difference to the safety of the service we provide; but it will do. We were told first of all that no front line operational staff would be affected; then it was duty managers and ticket office staff who were under threat; then it was CSAs who carry out the SATS duties on the platform who are surplus to requirements. When will it be Station Supervisors? When will it be T/Ops? A senior safety rep is outlining some of the very real problems elsewhere on this leaflet.
We cannot send our negotiators naked into the chamber – we have to give them a mandate to speak from a position of strength. We need to give an unequivocal and noisy response to LUL when, not if, we are called to take industrial action. The louder, the more aggressive, and the more militant we are on the very first day of action, the more willing LUL will be to sit down and enter meaningful talks with us.
It’s time to join the picket lines!