Tubeworker's blog

In 2022-23, across the entire UK rail network, there were 226 SPADs. The Picc had 187 on its own last year, nearly as many as every other UK railway combined. Over half of these SPADs were from drivers with less than two years of driving experience, who make up a small minority of those on the line...

With no clear timescale for it to be torn down, Bollo House, the Picc train crew depot, is starting to do the work itself. With the rat population exploding back to record levels now Spring has sprung, the latest development in the ongoing saga of disrepair and neglect was a whole window falling...

TSSA has announced a strike of its Customer Service Managers on LU, due to take place on 10 April. The strike aims to protest LUL's plans to abolish the CSM grade and deploy CSMs into other roles.

Tubeworker is pro-strike. We support any group of workers taking action, and urge any workers in other...

Aslef called off its planned strikes on the Tube after a letter from the company making various concessions on several of the issues under dispute. An almost-identical letter which issued to the RMT, which had been in parallel, but separate, talks with LUL on the same issues.

A comprehensive...

RMT has begun re-balloting directly-employed LUL members to renew the industrial action mandate in the "Jobs, Pensions, and Agreements" dispute.

Background:

Aslef has called strikes of LUL drivers on 8 April and 4 May. The strikes are in protest at LUL’s refusal to drop plans to radically reform drivers’ terms and...

An RMT activist writes...

I read the latest London Underground Employee Bulletin, about talks aimed at resolving Aslef's dispute and proposed strikes, with interest. It had a slightly different tone to other bulletins on industrial action that I’ve read when it was my own union, RMT, who had named...

The latest edition of our bulletin is now online.

Click here to download the PDF.

This edition reflects on discussion at our recent meeting about the 40th anniversary of the miners' strike, and argues for a real fightback against LUL's plans for attacks on drivers' conditions. Plus local and...

Research, published in March 2024 and led by Imperial College London, has found that London Underground staff who work in areas with higher concentrations of PM (particular matter) 2.5 tended to report more instances of sickness absence.

PM 2.5 is matter that is less than 2.5 micrometres in...

After last year's long wait for the westbound points to be replaced and consistent failures, which took all Heathrow services down the local, the eastbound points have been feeling left out, and now every service from Heathrow is pushed down the local.

But the points that failed were brand new...

📢 A Tubeworker and Off The Rails public (Zoom) meeting

Thursday 21 March
15:00-17:00

In 1984-5, a strike by mine workers rocked the foundations of the British capitalist state. The strike was a counter-offensive against the Thatcher government’s class-war policy which aimed to smash the labour movement.

RMT members on London Overground (Arriva Rail London) have called off strikes planed for 4-5 March and accepted a revised pay offer from the employer.

We've reported previously on LUL's plans to cut jobs in Fleet, by closing call points, leading to a shortfall in 27 jobs.

But it seems their plans may go further. According to research conducted by RMT reps, it looks like 20% of substantive positions in fleet depots are being held vacant.

Why...

The latest edition of TfL's in-house magazine On The Move focuses on women's equality, profiling women workers in various parts of the network and discussing the steps the company has taken to improve the representation of women.

It’s a fairly mainstream view in Britain that healthcare, as a vital public service we all rely on, should be socially provided, for free, and funded by taxation.

Here at Tubeworker, we've long argued that climate change is a working-class issue, and that we as public transport workers have a particular role to play in fighting for a pro-worker transition to a zero-carbon future.

The latest edition of our bulletin is now online.

Cleaners, catering and security staff, track protection workers, and others are employed by private companies rather than by LUL or TfL directly. Contracting out work to private companies is known as “outsourcing”. Invariably, outsourced workers have worse terms and conditions, and less secure work...

An Evening Standard story covering a TfL report about the parlous state of the Bakerloo fleet was greeted with wry amusement in many mess rooms in Bakerloo depots and stations.

Some of the stats (630,500 lost customer hours in 2022-3) are shocking; it’s only thanks to the hard work of staff on the...

Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall has wheeled out one of her party’s favourite lines, a promise to revoke the nominee passes TfL staff can access for a co-habiting family member or friend.

Hall ridiculously claims that revoking the passes would generate hundreds of millions of additional revenue...

TSSA is balloting its Customer Service Manager members across LU for industrial action against the ongoing restructure of the grade, with the ballot closing on 7 March.

The ballot is in part the result of pressure to do something, anything, about the restructure of the grade in which TSSA's LU...

London Underground Ltd. has made a new pay offer to our unions, details of which can be read in this RMT bulletin.

📢 Tubeworker public (Zoom) meeting

Thursday 15 February, 15:00-17:00

Log in via Zoom here.

Thousands of workers across London Underground and TfL are outsourced, meaning they are not employed directly by LUL or TfL but by private contractors. The biggest outsourced contract is cleaning, with...

LUL unions remain in negotiations with the company over how to distribute the £30 million of additional funding secured thanks to RMT's threatened week of action from 5-11 January.

RMT is recommending members working for Thales (GTS), a signalling and communications system contractor with numerous contracts on TfL/LUL, vote to accept the company's latest pay offer.

Last year, workers told their bosses a 5.5% offer for 2024 was not good enough. The new proposal adds a further...

The latest edition of our bulletin, collating content from our blog, is now online. Click here to download the PDF.

This edition reviews the recent developments in the LUL pay dispute, and discusses the implications for union organisation on the job. Plus, an update on the ABM cleaners' ballot, and...

It was another autumn/winter of flats on the Piccadilly line, with some days seeing multiple trains being pulled out of service due to the noise.

Management still seem in denial about the scale of any problem. The controllers never suffer from the noise so they won't ever tell us to take a train...

In news that came as a shock to no one, the date for the new Piccadilly line trains entering full service has been pushed back.

While the first train is still due before the end of 2025 (original date: 2014), the company say that with only half the money promised by government, they've had to push...

LUL's restructure for Customer Service Managers on stations "went live" on 8 January, prompting some angry responses from workers who felt they hadn't been kept adequately informed of the developments and their implications.

Under the new structure, CSMs can choose between applying for an entirely...

RMT has suspended an industrial action ballot of ABM cleaner members on LUL, after the company agreed to a review of the controversial "Project Lean", which has seen many cleaners face increased workloads.

ABM has now committed to reviewing the workload of any cleaner who was forced to take on...