On Wednesday TfL held a special meeting of the Company Council where they presented further information on their plans to freeze staff pay and slash the value of their pensions.

Having imposed an arbitrary and unfair new performance management system at mid-year without consultation, breached the current pay deal in withholding your 0.5% pay rise and refused to accept our fair pay principles as terms of reference for discussions about performance related pay, TfL have created a situation where every recognised trades union is in dispute. Unsurprisingly, they found themselves talking to an empty room.

Management expected us (and you) to roll over and accept their plans to freeze pay and downgrade pensions. In declining to attend a meeting where management are refusing to negotiate seriously, we have sent a powerful message that we are serious about resisting the changes they want to impose.

Members and reps agree that we should be in a position to be back ‘in the room’ in consultation with management and we want to bring them back to the proper rules of engagement as quickly as possible. They have a lot of questions to answer, and rest assured we will be asking them!

The ‘further details and worked examples’ presented on Wednesday have not added any value to the pre-existing document that was itself full of holes. Your trades union representatives have identified a number of key concerns arising from the examples presented by management:

• The salary examples do not factor in inflation (RPI our traditional collective bargaining measure) but merely look at budget ‘assumptions’
• The salary figures don’t record a ‘cumulative’ loss factoring different RPI assumptions over the five-
  year period to 2019 - so for example a 3% annual RPI would generate a cumulative loss of nearly 16% on ‘base pay’ by the end of the five-year period!
• There is no supporting information to show why ‘market data’ should be applied to all TfL disciplines/functions. The employment market is highly complex and segmented so any market testing needs to apply different market sensitivities (no one size fits all). Also, ‘market data’ shifts year-on-year so market testing would need to be revisited regularly not every five years
• There is no data showing how inflation will ‘drag’ co-workers into the dread ‘Zone E’ where bosses consider you overpaid and therefore freeze your salary – in practice, the higher the rate of inflation, the more staff will be dragged into zero pay rise territory
• Silence on pensions – how will the sum already earned/accrued by members be protected from inflation?

We have been and will continue holding workplace meetings to update you and listen to your views. So far, staff are telling us:

1. They don’t like the concept of non-consolidated bonus. They feel that TfL has always been an “employer of choice” where pensions are concerned.
2. They are anxious about the introduction of behaviours as a formal part of the P&D process.
3. They wonder why they would bother to participate in the P&D process if there was no chance
4. They are pleased that the recognised TUs are working together on this.
5. They wonder if they are being used as guinea pigs for a process that will be rolled out to our colleagues in LU next.

They feel behaviours are subjective and open to manipulation by line managers. of them getting a consolidated pay rise.

We will continue to press TfL management to start serious negotiations. Please feel free to share this information with your workplace colleagues.

Published 12 December 2013 by the Company Council Reps of the Joint TfL Trades Unions.