Tubeworker's blog

Night Tube strike solid

Night Tube station staff struck for the first time on 19 August.

The strike was well-supported amongst Night Tubers. The RMT's industrial power across the job - stations, trains, fleet, and elsewhere - ensured no Night Tube service ran at all.

This was the first time Night Tube station have struck...

LU pay: start the fight early!

Our pay deal on London Underground expires in April 2023. Our fight to get a decent settlement will be stronger and more effective if we start it as early as possible.

Cleaners meet to plan ballot

RMT London Transport Region has called a cleaners' campaign meeting for 25 August, from 11:00 at the Indian YMCA (W1T 6AQ).

Solidarity with London Overground workers!

Our strike on 19 August will be alongside London Overground (Arriva Rail London) workers, who are striking to win a decent pay rise, after their bosses offered a paltry 5%.

They've also begun balloting in a separate, parallel dispute over what Arriva Rail London calls "stations efficiencies"...

"Cost neutral"?

As LU pushes ahead with its plans for job cuts on stations, local reps are consulting members on the company's proposals. The pack issued to reps tells them that any proposed changes "must be cost neutral". They've even put it in bold, in case we miss it.

In other words, the company views its cuts...

Customer Misinformation

Yesterday, the company was telling passengers that Chancery Lane station was closed for engineeering works. It wasn't - it was closed because there were not enough station staff.

And it told the public that the Central Line had massive delays because of train cancellations. But why were there train...

Organise against TfL pay insult

TfL has offered a 3% pay increase to centrally-employed staff (i.e., those who don’t work for London Underground or similar subsidiaries), backdated to April 2022.*

TfL workers paid over £24k have faced a pay freeze during the pandemic, as emergency bailout funding was conditional on freezing pay...

Safety comes first

Now South Harrow Sidings is partially opened, management are hoping that the 15 minute chat and video are enough to get drivers to go in and out with no problem. Unfortunately for us the ballot failed that could have seen legal action short of strike to refuse to do the moves in and out of the...

New TfL funding deal? Open the books!

Grant Shapps has announced that he has put a long-term funding deal for TfL "on the table", in order to "ensure services are supported and £3.6bn of capital projects take place by 2024."

TfL commissioner Andy Byford has said TfL and City Hall will now consider "the details" of the deal.

But...

Next strike planned for 19 August: we need to up the pressure

RMT is planning a further strike in our dispute on jobs, pensions, and conditions for 19 August. The union has given the employer until 2 August to guarantee it will drop plans to cut jobs, reform pensions, and impose new terms and conditions. If no guarantee is forthcoming, the strike will take...

Night Tube strikes halted

The Night Tube driver strikes have been suspended. RMT NEC called off further action while a three month trial period takes place in which all depots can agree a minimum number on each line who want to do Night Tube duties. This follows a meeting of driver reps who agreed to accept this offer...

Gains made in fight over revenue workers' conditions

In Employee Bulletin sent to station staff on 22 July, LU announced it was backing down on some key elements of its plan to impose a new framework on the revenue department.

It has scrapped the plan to introduce cover weeks for revenue staff, and has said it will retain the current arrangement...

Job cuts coming on fleet?

RMT’s recent strikes have rightly highlighted the 600 stations jobs LU currently has in its sights. But, unless they were stopped, it was always only a matter of time until they moved on to other functions.

It looks like the company is now holding vacancies in some fleet depots, which is very...

Lift Off

The extreme heat on Monday and Tuesday saw some station closures, including Oxford Circus, which closed for a couple of hours due to a fire alert, caused by a part in an escalator machine chamber overheating, and Lambeth North, which had to close when its lifts overheated.

Part of our role as...

All in it together?

Building common organisation and power is undermined when workers in “higher” grades abuse the authority that gives them to lord it over workers in “lower” ones.

An example? CSAs at some stations during the recent heatwave have reported Customer Service Supervisors and Customer Service Managers...

More hot air from management?

This week, we've all been struggling to cope with the unprecedented heat levels, but gateline colleagues at Old Street have surely been handed a particularly raw deal.

It's been reported that the air conditioning unit in the managers' office has a hot air exhaust pipe that's been piping hot air...

More strikes due in August, but we need to pick up the pace

At a meeting on Friday 15 July, RMT reps resolved to call further strikes on LU in August, around the time of the strikes in the national rail dispute (18 and 20 August).

The announcement is welcome, as it sends a signal to the management and our membership that our fight to defend pensions, jobs...

Underground jobs, pensions, and conditions fight: next steps

An RMT activist gives their thoughts on the next steps in the LU dispute...


RMT reps from across LU will meet on 15 July to discuss the next steps in our dispute over jobs, pensions, and conditions.

TfL's current funding settlement is due to expire on 13 July, so will either be extended on the...

Cleaners need minimum numbers

A correspondent from a busy Zone 1 station tells us the 15:00-23:00 cleaning shift on Friday was covered by just one cleaner. Sometimes there are as many as three, but usually at least two. Having just one cleaner working perhaps the busiest shift of the day, on a busy weekend, is indefensible.

The...

'Appy days?

The app to submit requests for mutual changeovers of duties and annual leave has definitely improved the MCO process. But we reckon that developing it further could lead to even more benefits for work/life balance, particularly on stations.

In train depots, although not without flaws and...

Double standards?

It's bemusing seeing those who crossed LU picket lines to work during our strikes in March and June, and thereby assisted management who are coming for our jobs, pensions and terms and conditions, going on to praise RMT GS Mick Lynch, worry about further anti-strike legislation, or attack the Labour...

RMT re-launches cleaners' dispute

RMT has launched a new dispute over Tube cleaners' conditions.

The announcement of the dispute was made in a letter to Sadiq Khan, rightly attacking him for renewing ABM's cleaning contract despite mealy-mouthed comments during his election that he would "consider an in-house option".

It's not...

"Not persuaded"?

Mayor Khan has said in an interview that he is "not persuaded" of the need to change our pension arrangements.

That's the clearest statement anyone from TfL or City Hall has made that they don't agree with the Department for Transport's demands that the scheme must be cut. It's certainly a step...

Funding settlement extended, ballot mandate renewed...

23 June saw a nice coincidence of timing, as the Department for Transport announced they were extending TfL's current funding settlement, previously due to expire tomorrow, until 13 July - and on the same day, RMT announced that LU members had voted by over 90%, on a 53% turnout, to renew our...

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