Bakerloo Line

We reported a couple of months back on LU's scandalous decision to hand Sophie Kyei-Donkoh, a Piccadilly Circus CSA, a 52-week warning for the "crime" of being abused by a member of the public (who was, in fact, a serial vexatious complainer).

Sophie's colleagues, through their local reps and RMT branch, organised to take a stand, and committed to balloting for industrial action if the warning remained.

Fortunately, management saw sense and the warning was rescinded on appeal.

Network Rail has provided agency workers to work as suicide-prevention security staff on stations at the north end of the Bakerloo Line for some time.

Previously, workers were hired via an agency called SES, and paid around £10 an hour. But a new agency, Servo, has recently taken over the contract, and appears to be paying workers less - around £8 an hour.

Sophie Kyei-Donkoh, a CSA at Piccadilly Circus, was abused by an aggressive passenger, who makes serial vexatious complaints against staff. How did the company support her? With a 52-week disciplinary warning!

RMT members at Sophie’s station are rightly up in arms about this travesty. Prior to the decision, the union wrote to LU to tell them that there’d be a dispute should Sophie be disciplined.

The warning must be rescinded!

Station staff on the Wealdstone side at Harrow and Wealdstone, separated from the Harrow side by a long footbridge, still have no access to a toilet or running water. LU insists that the local council, not them, are responsible for the plumbing so fixing it is out of their hands.

Station staff on the Northern and District lines are set to follow in the footsteps of Bakerloo South and ballot for strikes for better staff coverage.

In the stations around Earl's Court and Hendon Central, duties are regularly left uncovered and staff left to run stations alone. Lone working is dangerous and stressful, and staff have had enough. On both these groups, union members are asking RMT to call industrial action to force management to fill vacancies and cover duties.

Under pressure from an RMT dispute and the threat of strikes, management on Bakerloo South stations have committed to a more proactive approach in ensuring duties are covered, and have given firm guarantees that vacancies on the group will be filled.

The vacancies, and management's previous policy of only attempting to arrange cover if so-called "critical" duties were uncovered, meant that stations were chronically short staffed and workers were bearing the brunt.

A resounding vote for strikes and the announcement of two strikes soon brought management to its senses.

Station staff at Baker Street and the Bakerloo Line South Cover Group are finishing 2018 on a high after the threat of strikes forced concessions from management.

At Baker Street, an unjustly sacked probationer was reinstated, and trumped up disciplinary charges against two staff, including the local RMT rep, were dropped after workers returned a big majority for industrial action.

Station staff on the Bakerloo Line South Cover Group (Oxford Circus, Piccadilly Circus, Charing Cross, Lambeth North, and Elephant and Castle) will strike on 26 December and 14 January, fighting back against short staffing.

The issues in the dispute are clear. Anyone who works at an even moderately busy station knows that staffing levels are already too low, and LU’s current culture of cost cutting means that when people are off sick or there are unfilled vacancies, those duties often go uncovered as the company doesn’t want to cough up for the overtime.

At Baker Street, workers are preparing to ballot to demand the reinstatement of CSA Mahoney, a probationer sacked after an outrageous abuse of the probation process. They are also demanding unnecessary disciplinary procedures against two workers, including the local RMT rep, be dropped.

LU's practise of not covering "non-critical" duties continues, meaning many stations are often short staffed. On some outlying areas, such as the north end of the Bakerloo Line, many stations are left entirely unstaffed.

The situation makes a mockery of LU's own documents and protocols. The company produces a "Business Needs Schematic" (BNS) for every station, stipulating the level at which the company itself says the station must be staffed. Apparently the BNS can now be disregarded.