Tubeworker's blog

Drivers on the Victoria and Central Lines are ready for action, with a strike due from 20:00 on Thursday 29 August to 20:00 on Friday 30 August. This will affect services all day on Friday.

These disputes follow a pattern we’ve seen elsewhere on the combine recently, including on the Piccadilly Line, where drivers struck last year. Depot bosses are throwing their weight around, misapplying and breaching company procedure, and generally treating drivers in an authoritarian and heavy-handed way.

At Farringdon, trains driven in ATO leave the station at 15mph. Trains reach 30mph within station limits. A faster line speed means a more frequent service, which is London Underground's priority.

Drivers are asking for trains to pull in and out of crowded stations like Farringdon at a slower speed to minimise accidents arising from overcrowded platforms.

Safety has to take priority over the frequency of the service.

Cleaning agency APG no longer exists. APG's agency cleaners have been transferred to the main contractor, ABM.

That sounds good until you hear that APG neglected to pay its workers outstanding holiday pay before it disbanded. Cleaners are owed hundreds of pounds. ABM says, 'It's nothing to do with us. Cleaners need to speak to APG'. But APG has gone!

So where is a cleaner to turn? To the RMT of course! Sub-contracted companies and agencies dodge paying cleaners' wages too easily. Cleaners need to be directly employed by LU.

RMT is considering a ballot of driver members on five lines - Victoria, Central, Northern, Jubilee, and Piccadilly - over noise levels.

LU has installed “Pandrol Vanguard” technology on the tracks in an attempt to reduce train noise at street level... with the effect that noise is forced into the cab and cars, affecting drivers and passengers.

This fix is not good enough. We want a proper engineering solution, and in the meantime a temporary speed restriction in place over affected areas to reduce noise.

Local management at Marylebone had been planning to force staff to stop using the ex-ticket office mess room as a mess facility. (We previously reported on this here.)

There’s no real justification for this decision; it seemed to simply be motivated by management wanting to throw its weight around. Local reps mounted a local campaign, escalated the issue through the machinery, and brought a motion to their branch proposing a dispute if management didn’t back down.

Alarmed that the temperature could rise above twenty degrees, last Friday evening, Network Rail announced that on Saturday there would be a speed restriction of 20mph all the way from Queen's Park to Bushey. After all, the rails might buckle in the oven-like temperatures.

Problem is: management didn't bother amending Bakerloo running times at all. Somehow, they expected trains to run to time without being allowed to run to time.

Drivers knew that this would rapidly turn into a fiasco. And so it came to pass. By Saturday midday, the job was up the wall.

TfL likes to boast about its Learning Zone, about how it has given staff the opportunity to enhance our skills and to overcome the barriers presented to dylexic and other neurodivergent people. It's so proud of the facility that ... it's planning to close it.

Yes, the company can afford massive salaries for the big cheeses, numerous over-the-top contractor fees, but not a really valuable education service that costs the equivalent of such one-and-a-half staff.

It's lovely to see the sparkling new improved westbound access ramp at South Woodford station. We are all in favour of improved access for mobility-impared people and people encumbered with luggage or buggies.

Shame that in its wisdom, LUL has installed BANK CARD ONLY ticket machines in the new entrance, forcing any mobility-impared people to have to make an arduous trip via a deep subway over to the eastbound booking hall and back again if they want or need to pay with cash. This assumes of course that the machines on the eastbound are actually in working order.

RMT has launched a local dispute on the Heathrow stations cover group, demanding an end to lone working during Night Tube hours.

RMT took the fight against ”Transformation” cuts and the exploitation of outsourced cleaners to Sadiq Khan’s front door today, with a demonstration outside City Hall, organised to coincide with Mayor’s Questions.

Other unions, including Unite and IWGB, had also organised actions, along with environmental campaigners from Extinction Rebellion.

As TfL/LU push ahead with cuts planned under its “Transformation” process, RMT is balloting affected members for strikes and other industrial action. Workers affected include all ex-Tube Lines members, Palestra House (LUCC) Service Control, Signals, Skills Development, and Track Access Control.

The Labour Party has a national policy commitment to end outsourcing when it goes into government. Great. But we already have a Labour mayor in City Hall. Not only is Sadiq Khan overseeing the continued outsourcing of cleaning, security, and cleaning, under his mayoralty, TfL and LU bosses are looking to outsource and privatise even more workers!

What an absolutely phenomenal piece of spin on the LU intranet, as the company scrambles to defend its collusion in cleaner job cuts.

The officially designated mess room at Marylebone station is on the concourse, at the bottom of the escalators down from the gateline. It’s rarely used; it’s a bit dingy, away from the toilets, and further away from the gateline if you need to come out to help in an emergency.

Instead, most staff prefer to use a tea point in the old ticket office, right next to the gateline.

Despite this practise having been ongoing for some time, with no issues whatsoever, management are insisting people stop using the tea point and only use the downstairs mess room.

RMT has called a demo outside City Hall on Thursday 20 June. It demands “no Tory cuts under a Labour mayor”, pressing Sadiq Khan not to pass on Tory austerity to transport workers and users in London.

The two specific focuses are the “Transformation” scheme, which threatens thousands of jobs in engineering and admin roles, and the struggles of outsourced workers.

The demo assembles from 10:00. Tubeworker will be there, and we hope you will be too.

RMT is now preparing to ballot members on LU for industrial action over pay and conditions. With all three other unions having also rejected LU’s latest offer, it’s likely they’ll ballot too.

Restrictive anti-union laws mean we need to get a 50% turnout and at least 40% of all those balloted voting yes to take legal action. So make sure your contact details are up to date with your union so your ballot paper gets sent to the right place.

Tube cleaners in the RMT are preparing to ballot for strikes. Here, a cleaner tells Tubeworker why.

“Tube cleaners have been campaigning for many years against injustice. We're fighting for dignity, and equal conditions in our workplaces. Currently we have no company sick pay, which means cleaners who get sick are forced to come to work or face financial hardship. And we also have no free travel passes, unlike directly-employed staff working on the railway.

Some ABM cleaners on the former JNP contract had their pictures taken, apparently in order to be issued with travel passes that would allow them to open gates while at work.

Some time has now passed, and there’s no sign of the passes.

The way to resolve the situation is simple: LU needs to issue all cleaners with the same travel passes directly-employed staff receive.