LUL Management seems to have got themselves in a twist over the 2009 pay.

RMT have demanded a substantial one year pay rise and other benefits, including a ‘floor’ salary of £26,000. Heating and food bills have gone right up over the last year and Underground passenger numbers are higher than ever.

Despite all the unions making the pay claim early as requested by Management, the LUL bosses are unwilling to talk about pay. Maybe their bosses won’t let them come out to play! As a result the LUL Company Council meeting scheduled by them to discuss the pay rise was a waste of time, with Management having nothing to say except half heartedly suggesting we look at a 5 year pay deal. There is not a cat in hell’s chance of us agreeing to that and they know it.

With Metronet workers coming over to London Underground, there are now two separate negotiating bodies, the existing LUL Company Council and the Metronet/LUL Company Council. Management have suggested that we have a temporary joint negotiating body to deal with the pay talks. But – surprise surprise - they want to cut RMT numbers for the negotiations! This is not acceptable and it doesn’t auger well for the actual talks.

Certainly if the bosses think they can frighten us with the credit crunch, they had better think again. Underground workers expect a good pay rise to deal with rising costs, and not in the form of ‘performance’ style bonuses of other nonsense of this sort. If Management think we will roll over or that we are not prepared to take industrial action, they are in denial.

On TfL the Management have named days for talks on pay – but at the end of February! But in the meantime they are threatening job cuts and restructuring as if this had nothing to do with pay. There are 6 unions on TfL, including civil service unions. We will be looking for unity over pay and jobs with the other unions on both TfL and LUL, but we won’t be relying on that.

We may need to show some old fashioned RMT unity before long.