Reserve and pool staff

Pool drivers at Barking depot on the Hammersmith and City line have been getting heartily fed up of being sent to cover duties at Edgware Road and Hammersmith depots.

Under the line pool agreements, pool drivers don’t get paid travelling time when they are sent in this way. But management were breaching their own agreements and sending drivers to other depots when there were uncovered duties at Barking - an issue raised by local reps, who have got the practice stopped.

London Underground has said that new part-time Night Tube drivers won’t get the drivers' New Years' Eve bonus, and that only existing, full-time drivers should be entitled to it.

At the same time, in the effort to reduce weekend working for drivers, it has been suggested that pool drivers should work more weekends so rostered drivers work fewer.

We hear some stations managers have been staffing 24 hour New Year’s Eve on a budget. Rather than let people choose whether to work through the night and pay them an enhanced payment as a thank you, some managers moved reserve CSAs from dead lates to night shifts with only a few days’ notice. To add insult to injury, the reserve staff were told that they were not entitled to the enhanced payment because they hadn’t volunteered. What a delightful way to thank someone who has been forced to cancel their New Year’s plans!

News reached Tubeworker HQ that some stations are so short of master keys for staff, CSAs have to share.

This means we have to go borrowing our colleagues' keys every time we need to get into the mess room, or use the toilet, which can get a bit embarrassing, as well as inconvenient.

What's behind this key stinginess, we wonder? Apparently, too many keys have gone missing in the past, and management is now refusing to issue more.

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.

Pool operators are being used to cover duties across a line when the other depot is within 45 minutes. This doesn’t mean you book on at your home duty and then cover another location within your duty parameters and then have time to return to your home depot before booking off. It means you could be given a week's worth of duties at the other end of your line. No travelling time, no extra payment.

'Line Reserve' is happening. Reserve station staff who used to only work on one group are being asked to work on other groups. As we have warned already, this will erode reserves' terms and conditions, who already get precious little notice of their work pattern. It has health and safety implications too. Staff need to know their stations. We had line reserve in the past but it was scrapped after the Kings Cross fire.

Reserve CSAs on Liverpool Street group have a guaranteed weekend off every four weeks. Management evidently think that they are living the life of Riley so have announced that they want to cut it to every six weeks.

Charming - you'd better start asking your kids to make appointments a couple of months in advance if they want to spend a day with you. And as far as Tubeworker can tell, Liverpool Street isn't even especially busy at weekends.

Eleven reserve CSA’s on the Goodge Street Group were sent letters last week warning them that they could be moved from their current group, which is over-establishment, to one that is under. Management have revealed their callous disregard for the lives of the staff they employ and another attempt to undermine job stability, following from their recent success at forcing staff to move from the Rickmansworth group.

Management let slip at one of their 'Northern line meetings' their latest plans to cut costs, which involves ... (no surprise)... cutting back on staff!

There will be an overall reduction in the number of reserve staff, people who are transfered or promoted will not be replaced. The result? More anti-social shifts for the reserves that are left, less flexibility in choosing rest days because less cover will be available, more last-minute changes of duties to cover for absence. These things will have a big impact on the quality of life of reserve staff.