Yes
Mp Diane Abbott asked on the 27th of November at PMQs:
The Prime Minister will be aware that the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, proposes to close nearly every single ticket office on the London Underground network, with more than 700 jobs being lost. Does the Prime Minister believe that that is the way to raise living standards for ordinary Londoners?
Prime Minister David Cameron responded:
Yes.
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow has said “Axing staff and ticket offices is part of the drive to a faceless, automated Tube where you take your chances the moment you step onto a station, a platform or a train. RMT will work with sister unions and the public to fight these plans, using every campaigning, political and industrial tool at our disposal.”
Yes.
London Underground Ltd is stepping up its project to casualise the workforce and attack our terms and conditions. The company’s aim is to remove obstacles to cutting jobs, and to drive down the conditions of those who remain. Even if there is no immediate threat to scrap your particular job, this process is going on all around us, so this is a fight for us as well as for other grades.
LUL is:
Yes.
Derail LUL’s plans for driverless trains
Yes.
In a recent survey:
71% oppose ticket office closures
81% said that loss of staff at stations would make travel difficult
71% said they need assistance from staff at stations and on trains
54% said they need help buying tickets
45% said they need help with accessing ticket gates and platforms
34% said staff and ticket office cuts would deter them from making some journeys or make train travel difficult
In 2011, the Operations Strategic Plan (OSP) stripped station staffing to the bone. Stations are barely coping as it is. Now management plan to cut nearly 1,000 of our jobs, close all our ticket offices, and completely reorganise our way of working.
Our stations will not cope with this. Every remaining member of station staff will be over-stretched, vulnerable to abuse and assault, fearful for our safety and our jobs. Our jobs will be devalued and our promotion chances will be gone. The company even intents to make us, in effect, reapply for our own jobs.
Yes.
You will still be affected, by:
- increased workload and responsibility on those who remain
- loss of support available in doing your job
- more dissatisfied passengers, meaning more complaints, abuse and assaults
- less opportunity for transfer, promotion, career change or redeployment
- less money going into the pension fund
If management succeed in their current round of job cuts, then it could be your job next.
950
Hackney MP Diane Abbott has asked a question in parliament during Prime Ministers Questions enquiring how cutting more than 700 jobs will raise living standards for ordinary Londoners.
London Underground has announced that they plan for 950 jobs to go, with all ticket offices closing and most station staff having to reapply for jobs.
Abbott who is a member of the RMT parliamentary group said: