London Underground management stated today that they are not prepared to negotiate with the trade unions about its plan to cut 800 jobs, mainly on stations. The unions have insisted that we have the right to negotiate on this issue, to argue against the job cuts, and have referred the issue to ACAS.

LU management say that they are only prepared to 'consult' the unions about the cuts, and to 'negotiate' only about their impact eg. new rosters. The difference is important:

• In negotiations, management have to try to reach an agreement with us; in consultation, they just have to give us some information about what they are doing.
• In negotiations, LU is supposed to take some notice of what the unions say; in consultation, they can (and usually do) just ignore it.
• In negotiations about the company's plans, we get to talk about whether LU should cut these jobs; in LUL's proposed consultation, we only talk about how to cut them.

We also disagreed about the forum in which these talks should take place. LU wants to discuss them at a 'functional' level ie. separate discussions for stations, managers, trains, etc. But the unions insisted that the job cuts affect all grades of staff, and should therefore be discussed in the only forum at which all grades and all unions are represented ie. Company Council. We referred this disagreement to ACAS too.

However, LU management said that they intend to go ahead with discussing things their way anyway!

This may sound like irrelevant bickering, but it is actually very important. RMT is committed to putting the case against job cuts to management, and to presenting our members' views as clearly as possible. But we will not allow London Underground management to drag us into meaningless 'talks' simply designed to help them cut jobs.