Tube Strike Next Week

[duncanp]

Here we go again

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29516508

Workers on the London Underground are to hold a 48-hour strike next week in a long-running dispute over staff cuts.

The RMT union said its members had been instructed not to book on for any shifts between 21:00 BST next Tuesday and 20:59 hrs on Thursday.

The planned strike coincides with separate walk-outs by council workers and civil servants nationwide.

Transport for London hopes to save £50m a year by closing ticket offices and cutting jobs.

It says it needs to save £4.2bn by 2020.

The dispute, which began in February, has already seen two separate strikes.

'Toxic cuts'

The last planned walkout was paused so that talks could take place, but the mandate to take action was still in place if the RMT thought not enough was being done.

Mick Cash, the union's general secretary, said: "RMT negotiators have made every effort in the long-running talks to resolve a range of issues that impact on our members' jobs, their pay and working conditions and the safety of the services that they provide to the travelling public.

"The strike action next week is designed to force the mayor to instruct his senior officials to back away from this toxic cuts package and engage in serious and meaningful negotiations."

TfL has yet to comment on the latest strike announcement.

Figures revealed by the London Assembly's Labour group last month suggested some Tube stations in London could lose more than half their front-line staff as a result of the cuts.

Labour's London Assembly spokesperson Val Shawcross claimed people were being "forced to pay more money for less", but a TfL spokesman said there would be "more staff visible and available to help our passengers".

TfL's plans, which it says are subject to change, show a total of 216 stations could have their staffing numbers cut from January 2015, with about 588 staff due to be shed in total across the network.

But London Underground's chief operating officer, Phil Hufton, claimed: "It is nonsense to suggest our plans to modernise staffing at stations will not benefit passengers."

 

[chris11256]

Sigh.


This again. I'm starting to get sick of both sides in this.

 

[Nym]

Just to post the not funded by license fee view on this...

7 October 2014

RMT Press Office

TUBE UNION RMT today confirmed 48 hours of strike action on London Underground later this month in the continuing fight against the Mayor’s onslaught on jobs, working conditions, safety and the threat to services including the wholesale closure of ticket offices.

The vast majority of RMT tube members have been instructed not to book on for any shifts between 2100 hrs on 14th October through to 2059 hrs on the 16th October. Fleet members have been instructed not to book on for any shifts between 1829 hrs on the 14th October through to 1828 hrs on the 16th October.

The latest phase of action in RMT’s “Every Job Matters” campaign follows a mass meeting of reps that took place late last week to take a report back from the on-going talks with London Underground. Although some limited progress has been made through those talks the union executive has taken the clear view that it is simply not enough after months of negotiations and that the only option is to move back in to a further round of strike action.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said ;

“RMT negotiators have made every effort in the long-running talks to resolve a range of issues that impact on our members jobs, their pay and working conditions and the safety of the services that they provide to the travelling public.

“The cuts, currently being bulldozed through, would de-staff whole areas of the tube system at a time of surging passenger demand and would make evacuation and other basic safety procedures a physical impossibility. The axing of ticket offices and station staffing grades would render the tube a no-go zone for many people with disabilities and for women travelling alone. The cuts ignore the realities of life that we saw when services broke down last week and the recent surveys which point to an increase in violence and sexual assaults.

“RMT will not stand back and allow Government- driven austerity cuts to hollow out the tube system and leave it as a dangerous shell. We are also fully aware that the current cuts are just part of a multi-billion pound attack that will include such lethal ideas as driverless-operation. The strike action next week is designed to force the Mayor to instruct his senior officials to back away from this toxic cuts package and engage in serious and meaningful negotiations.

ENDS

This is just going to be slightly more of a pain in the backside now I've moved office from Holborn to Canary Wharf. Still, it's only an hour and a bit walk from my mainline station, I loose some fat and the fat cats realize that the workers won't lie down on this matter with the absolute farce of a public consultation on FFtFS...

 

[chris11256]

I get the feeling that the RMT have given up banging the job losses drum and they've now moved onto Safety, hoping to get more public support.

I like the driverless trains described as lethal! Move with the times RMT.

(last bit meant more as a light hearted joke)

 

[Tetchytyke]

London Underground clearly aren't going to budge and they're quite happy to wait out the RMT.

The RMT have always mentioned staff cuts as a safety issue, there will be plenty of single-staffed stations out in suburbia. It's not safe and it's not appropriate, but Underground want to force it through and break the union in the process.

It's funny how "cost cutting measures" at London Underground never stretch to Mike Brown's £476,000 pay packet...

 

[SS4]

It's funny how "cost cutting measures" at London Underground never stretch to Mike Brown's £476,000 pay packet...

Mighty convenient isn't it that those in charge of cost cutting measures are never personally affected by them?

I saw the thread on reddit and it was basically "**** the RMT for daring to inconvenience me" a situation I foresee playing out in mainstream media

 

[Clip]

London Underground clearly aren't going to budge and they're quite happy to wait out the RMT.

The RMT have always mentioned staff cuts as a safety issue, there will be plenty of single-staffed stations out in suburbia. It's not safe and it's not appropriate, but Underground want to force it through and break the union in the process.

...

Out of interest what makes a tube station singled staffed as unsafe? This already happens at a couple IIRC places like West Ruislip Im sure only has one member of staff on at any one time bar the cleaners.

 

[PeterC]

I saw the thread on reddit and it was basically "**** the RMT for daring to inconvenience me" a situation I foresee playing out in mainstream media

The usual arguement seems to be "how dare a pleb earn a decent wage by working every hour God sends while I have to slave away for 35 hours a week in a comfortable office".

 

[edwin_m]

A few thousand more votes in the bag for whoever the new Tory candidate for mayor is.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Mighty convenient isn't it that those in charge of cost cutting measures are never personally affected by them?

Amazing, isn't it.

There are over 300 people within TfL who earn over £100,000 per year. I'm sure there's plenty of fat there that can be trimmed before we start firing station staff.

A special mention here goes to advertising boss Vernon Everitt, who pockets £364,000 a year for promoting a service that even a peasant in North Korea has heard of.

I saw the thread on reddit and it was basically "**** the RMT for daring to inconvenience me" a situation I foresee playing out in mainstream media

It's already going that way, both sides using favoured media for a political argument ahead of a general election.

The right-wing lot are frothing about "the RMT holding Londoners to ransom". usvsth3m.com, a Mirror website, is explaining why Londoners should support the strike: http://usvsth3m.com/post/84222538018/12-reasons-all-londoners-should-support-the-tube

 

[Clip]

So still no answer as to why a single staffed station in the suburbs is less safe then? Even though there are some already?

And to add to it - what about all the railway stations that are unstaffed completely? Very rarely do I read about massive crime waves happening in them so I am interested to know your view on the above question.

 

[chris11256]

For me personally, single staffed stations wouldn't bother me.

Currently when I arrive at my work station, there's always 3-4+ members of staff just standing around the gateline in a group chatting about the previous evening or their weekend plans(there's also individual staff on platforms). So I doubt loosing 1-2 of the gateline group would make a difference.

 

[Tetchytyke]

So still no answer as to why a single staffed station in the suburbs is less safe then? Even though there are some already?

I'm not aware of any tube stations which are always single-staffed by design. Where they are, perhaps due to staff shortages, the single staff member is in a secure part of the building, usually in the ticket office or supervisor's office.

The new plans are that there will be one supervisor between six stations, and that the single staff member will be on the station concourse NOT in a secure part of the station.

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2013/big-changes-gonna-come-part-2-new-approach-ticket-sales/

Leaving a staff member, by themselves, on the concourse of a station is dangerous for that staff member. Remember that there won't be a ticket office for the staff member to work in, they're getting abolished, so the staff will be out on the concourse, and their supervisor could be at a station 20 minutes away.

I can see plenty of flaws with this plan. I wonder why London Underground can't?

And to add to it - what about all the railway stations that are unstaffed completely? Very rarely do I read about massive crime waves happening in them so I am interested to know your view on the above question.

Unstaffed stations in urban London have huge issues with petty crime and vandalism. Look at the state of many of the inner-urban stations on the West Anglia Main Line, for instance. Look at how neglected and unwelcoming the North London Line and Goblin stations were in Silverlink days, and how TfL staffed these stations as part of the transformation to Overground in order to sort out the mess.

And, even now, look at the state of some of the stations in South London.

I don't know about "massive crime waves", it depends how you want to define them, but unstaffed stations attract layabouts and vandals. And, even more importantly, there is a perception that they are threatening to many people, such as vulnerable adults, disabled people or women travelling alone.

Speaking of vulnerable people, how often recently have we seen that lift access at suburban stations is "not available due to staff shortages". Cutting staff numbers back even further isn't exactly going to sort that out, is it? That's why many disability campaign groups are not happy at these plans, because they know they'll be the ones to suffer.

http://www.transportforall.org.uk/n...-serious-concerns-over-staff-cuts-on-the-tube

 

[Clip]

Ahh so the station is dangerous for the staff member being on the concourse or platform then and has nothing to do with passenger safety but staff member safety. Because of course if a staff member is safe behind the ticket window then how can they help their passengers? Two edge sword.

And yes Im sure places like WR areonly single staffed through the day - I used to manage the rail station and so was always round that neck of the woods and could never remember seeing more than 1 unless their supervisor was down.must happen elsewhere too

Yes lots of unstaffed mainline stations are grotty and can be unwelcoming but again I have seen no evidence that they are unsafe because of this especially given they are now covered just about everywhere which is silly but I still dont see stories about lots and lots of crimes happenning to the person so just how unsafe are they then?

I manage stations and yet I have not seen higher reports of crime on them in general than the ones that are staffed that I manage.


Im not saying its ideal not having lots of staff about but if they are simply not needed then they are not needed as harsh as that sounds.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

So still no answer as to why a single staffed station in the suburbs is less safe then? Even though there are some already?

And to add to it - what about all the railway stations that are unstaffed completely? Very rarely do I read about massive crime waves happening in them so I am interested to know your view on the above question.

Maybe because people stopped using them after it went dark.

 

[swt_passenger]

Called off now, according to BBC:

A planned 48-hour strike by London Underground workers has been suspended following talks, the RMT union has said.

Tube workers had planned to walk out next week, from 21:00 BST on Tuesday until 20:59 on Thursday, as part of a long-running dispute over staff cuts.

The RMT said "substantial progress" had been made following talks with Transport for London (TfL).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-29555493

 

[SS4]

I am glad to hear it.

The dispute is over TfL plans to save £50m a year by closing ticket offices.

It says it needs to save £4.2bn by 2020.

Exactly who was holding London to ransom? If Mr Hufton is oh-so commited to the future of TfL I'm sure he and his staff will take a 10% pay cut to help pay for said cuts :roll:

 

[Clip]

Maybe because people stopped using them after it went dark.

Not true at all . Oyster readings confirm this.And on weekends at stations further out ticket sales confirm this,

 

[Olaf]

Called off now, according to BBC:

It says it's only suspended, so does that mean it will be back on when the RMT next tosses it's rattle out of the pram?

 

[SS4]

It says it's only suspended, so does that mean it will be back on when the RMT next tosses it's rattle out of the pram?

Or when TfL refuse to negotiate knowing they have the media and public opinion wrapped around their little finger?

 

[Olaf]

Or when TfL refuse to negotiate knowing they have the media and public opinion wrapped around their little finger?

In other words, the tail trying to wag the dog; TfL Management needs to man-up.

 

[Deerfold]

In other words, the tail trying to wag the dog; TfL Management needs to man-up.

And anyone not happy should get themselves a better job?