Workers' Liberty

'The Sun' took an interest in tube stations shutting last week, as a short closure of Arsenal station gave it an excuse to trot out the old anti-union cliches about railworkers mucking up the service

An appalling incident at Kenton station this morning shows just what risks London Underground are taking with safety with their compulsion to drive down staff numbers.

We are mostly hearing the right noises from RMT about fighting London Underground's plan to cull up to 800 jobs.

TfL has finally admitted what we all knew was coming - massive job cuts on stations.

We at Tubeworker are always saying that our unions should do more to get the public on our side.

As we all know, these are tough economic times, and we all have to tighten our belts. Jobs have to go, pay restraint must be shown, blah blah blah.

It seems that London Underground has put the word out round its managers that uncovered duties are to be left uncovered unless it is really really definitely crucial to the station's safety.

London Underground's destructive urges continue unabated, with their latest effort - getting rid of emergency stop plungers on platforms.

RMT has done us a service by again leaking management plans that will lead to job cuts.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) has published a report calling for a large reduction on the working week – to around 21 hours.

The new issue of our printed Tubeworker bulletin is available now. Click here to download it.

• “You’ve only got £2.50 on you.”

• “You only need £2.50 to make the journey you want to make.”
  
  

Local Loughton residents are having trouble sleeping at night as the works are incredibly loud. Mega-decibel drilling has sent them to their phones and emails, and complaints are flooding in.

Some people are getting quite excited about the rapidly-increasing inflation figures. After all, if the February RPI figure (published next month) is, say, 3.5%, then we will get a 4% pay rise.

Thankfully, strong union representation has reined in some of the worst abuses of the SIS / mystery snooper survey.

It looks like there has been a win for signal maintenance staff, who are no longer under threat of imposed weekend working.

The East London Line is due to reopen soon, newly-privatised and rebranded as London Overground.

Loughton station now has a hoarding along the length of platform 3.

Howard Zinn (1922-2010)

Drivers are feeling the effects of the woeful 2009 Agreement as management come after jobs.

Yesterday's strike of ex-Metronet signals staff was 100% solid, and even spread to fleet staff who refused to cross picket lines.

Last week, the reaction to unattended packages on London Underground trains hit explosive new levels.

It’s all fun in Travel Information land because we are getting very interesting calls about the minimum £5 top up charge at booking offices.

In the preposterous film 2012, solar flares cause the earth’s tectonic plates to move, resulting in ecological catastrophe. The ruling classes respond by building a number of modern Arks, so that the best of humanity will survive the apocalypse and begin again. Reflecting existing divisions, the main states all build separate Arks, and allow the extremely wealthy to buy tickets for themselves, so that they can pick up business as usual.

The new issue of our printed Tubeworker bulletin is out now. Click here to download it.

It seems that a big cheese manager, keen to bolster staff morale, was careless enough to describe the Piccadilly line as the "workhouse" of the Underground when he surely meant the "workhorse".

A stonkingly high Yes vote for industrial action has shown that signal technicians are well up for a fight against management's attempts to impose new, anti-social rosters.

Tubeworker is happy to recommend readers sign RMT's online petition against job cuts and ticket office closures.

Click here.

Jubilee Line train maintainers at Stratford Market Depot are striking for pay parity with the Northern Line.

With engineering work on the Northern line this weekend, management's freeze on stations vacancies is seeing some chickens coming fluttering home to roost.