New Drivers Messed Around

Posted in Tubeworker's blog on ,

Life for new drivers is not great right now. Just when you finally got that promotion into what you thought was a secure, decently-paid job, you find yourself moved around like a pawn on a chessboard. LUL management used you to help them deliver the service on the heavy-duty Olympic lines, now they've moved you from the Jube or Central lines to the C&H for the upgrade or to the Northern line for the TBTC. Who knows what the next stop will be on your journey?

Such are the delights of TOPRA and the woeful 2009 Agreement.

But it's even worse. This isn't just about inconvenience for new drivers now. It's about preparing for future job cuts.

Management want to establish the principle of drivers being easily movable from one line to another. Once they've opened up that particular crack in our current practice, they will move step by step to do it more and more - and that will enable them to staff up the trains with far fewer drivers.

The unions should draw a line against this, and get us out of the dreadful 'agreements' that facilitate it. We should not wait for job cuts to fight job cuts - we should resist the preparations for them too.

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