Pay&Conditions/Night Tube 2015

Remember that promise that there would be no detriment arising from the implementation of Night Tube? Remember that promise in the Pay and Night tube dispute settlement that work-life balance would not get worse and would get better where possible?

Well, those promises look like a sick joke to the 42 drivers across the combine facing forced displacement from their depots to depots an hour or more from where they work now.

There seems to be a lot of fun and games going on regarding the launch date from Night Tube.

As our unions put referendum papers into envelopes asking us to accept the pay / Night Tube offer, Tubeworker will be voting No, because:

1. It is a pay cut. National Insurance rules change in April, meaning that more will be deducted from our gross pay. Together with the rising cost of living, this means that we will have less money coming in and more going out.

2. LUL has given Area Managers 8% pay rises. Why should we settle for so much less?!

Indications that ASLEF is dropping out of the fight over pay and Night Tube are alarming - the barely-changed pay offer is not good enough.

Aslef, RMT, and Unite have named strikes for 26-27 January, 15-16 February, and 17-18 February. Each strike is for 24 hours, commencing on the evening of the first day and continuing until the following evening. TSSA's leadership is meeting tomorrow and may join the action.

These strikes are part of the ongoing dispute over pay, terms and conditions, and the "Night Tube" settlement. The company's offer, tabled in November, is pretty shoddy, for reasons we set out at the time.

So the company is advertising part-time Night Tube drivers' jobs. Here at Tubeworker, we like to see new jobs created and to see staff getting the opportunity to work reduced hours. And if Night Tube duties are done by part-timers who want to work those hours, then there will be no need for full-timers to work any extra night turns.

LU has indicated it may rush to impose new contract on station staff, particularly in the areas where it wants to launch "Fit for the Future" first (King's Cross, and the east end of the Central Line).

It seems the company has grown tired of pretending it's interested in negotiating constructively with unions and plans to bulldoze its plans through.

A provocation of this kind needs a decisive response. It's time to strike.

So, with Night Tube in the long grass, LUL has sent us a repackaged offer on pay. Here are a few reasons why it is rubbish:

Hundreds of station staff have signed up to take voluntary severance (VS).

The VS scheme was one of the means by which LU claimed it was softening the blow of the "Fit for the Future" job cuts, arguing that, while nearly 1,000 jobs would be cut, at least no-one was actually being sacked. While technically true, and while voluntary redundancies are preferable to compulsory ones, many workers, faced with a regrading and displacement process none of us asked for, did feel like they were effectively being forced out of their jobs.

RMT has been polling its driver members in a referendum to see if they want union negotiators to discuss the possibility of amending the drivers' framework to facilitate the trial of a four-day, 36-hour week in two depots. The results are due back this week.

The trial would necessitate increasing the maximum time spent on the front of a train (currently 4 hours 15 minutes).