Regional Organiser's report: Pay and more

Dear colleagues,

LUL - TfL - Alstom - Cubic - bus workers

LUL Pay

I attended the LUL company council meeting on the 08/9/09 and discussed the pay offer. There was no improvement whatsoever on the last offer. It remains 1.5 percent this year and RPI plus 0.5 percent next year. LUL are prepared to release our reps for a meeting and I am requesting Tuesday 6th October 2009 (one day after the ASLEF reps are released) to take a sounding on where we go.

I personally feel that the deal is very poor and therefore unacceptable. However to get a better deal our pay fight needs to be built up again. I certainly think that to accept such a poor deal would let ASLEF off the hook as they can then blame us for not rejecting the deal. The pay will not be processed until next year anyway as the cut off date to have it paid this year according to Howard Collins is the 16th September 2009. [This has now been extended to the 25th of September]

One possibility is non acceptance and then put a pay claim in as normal for 2010 this would effectively let them impose a 1.5 percent pay deal this year and then we could still negotiate for 2010 where the prospect of a half percent pay rise might spark our members into action.

To sum up the pay offer is still crap but we should not rush in let’s see what the TSSA and ASLEF do. We as a union will then be in possession of all the facts to make an informed decision. We cannot be forced into a rushed poorly considered deal by management and as ASLEF have already agreed their meeting for October 5th there is absolutely no point in us being pushed into a rash decision because even if we did accept the deal, the deadline of the 25th will be exceeded before ASLEF make any decision.

TfL pay

The Final Offer: Year 1: 1.5 per cent Year 2: RPI plus 0.5 per cent Year 3: RPI plus 0.5 per cent

This is similar to the LUL deal only a year longer. We have the same employers so why do we have different time scales? The answer is simple: RMT took action on LUL where we are the largest union. On TfL we are a minority and the other unions have not balloted.

Alstom [metro]

Have offered a one year deal of 2.5 percent and 2.65 percent for lower paid workers. The Rmt have accepted.

Cubic

(who maintain the oyster card machines) have been offered 3 per cent for a one year deal.

Bus workers

About forty RMT bus workers and supporters held a protest outside Twickenham garage against management bullying and harassment. members have also been abused by members of another union with one of our reps having his tyres slashed and being spat on. We will escalate our action until this intimidation stops.

Yours sincerely

Steve Hedley Regional Organiser