As of about 7pm, the BBC is reporting the following stations closed: Barbican, Borough, Bounds Green, Bow Road, Caledonian Road, Cannon Street, Clapham North, Clapham South, Covent Garden, East Ham, Edgware Road - Bakerloo Line Station, Elm Park, Goodge Street, Hampstead, Holloway Road, Hyde Park, Kilburn, Kilburn Park, King's Cross - three lines, Knightsbridge, Lambeth North, Manor House, Mornington Crescent, Russell Square, Shepherd's Bush Central, Southgate, St John's Wood, St Paul's, Swiss Cottage, Tufnell Park, Wood Green.
If that doesn't sound too many to you, then consider:
- Non-Section 12 stations (ie. those above ground ie. most of them) can be legally left open with no staff.
- Management's strategy is to use managers, admin, scabs etc to keep key stations open, in particular to prevent three stations in a row being closed, which would mean that trains could not run through that section.
- Many, many of the stations that are open will have ticket offices closed and ticket gates open, long before free travel starts. So the company will have lost a lot of revenue.
Train services on many lines have been disrupted after some drivers refused to work on safety grounds.
As usual, do not trust management's own figures or claims about the extent of the disruption.
There were some lively, well-supported picket lines, including at Acton Town, Arnos Grove, Seven Sisters and Edgware Road.
Obviously, the action has had a rough ride in the media, which has gone to great lengths to avoid stating the basic cause of the strike: LUL is imposing rosters which drastically cut staffing levels at some stations.
LUL claims that the strike is unnecessary because the union disagrees with the rosters at "only" four groups of stations. Being bosses, they wouldn't understand the principle that an injury to one is an injury to all. Even if there had been unacceptable staffing cuts at just one station, it would be right for the union to fight it.
We are due to be on strike again in eight days' time. Let's hope that our action today will force management to suspend the staffing cuts and listen to reason. Just in case they don't, there is plenty for us to be doing:
- Hold a reps' meeting to discuss how the action went and what the next steps should be.
If there are any scabs who can be dissuaded from repeating their shameful behaviour, then dissuade them. - Organise pickets - we should be able to have more of them than today.
- RMT head office must produce a leaflet for the public.
- Defend any driver who is victimised for refusing to drive, and find ways of getting drivers and other grades (eg. signallers) involved.
- RMT's full-time officials must improve communication with local reps and rank-and-file members.
Finally, although union activists did well today, the difficulties we experienced in organisation and communication underline the view that Tubeworker took before: that New Year's Eve is not a good time to go on strike.