Workers' Liberty

The RMT had a long-standing claim for signal operators to have pay parity with drivers. They used to (pre Company Plan), but over the last few years drivers have had some big pay increases and signal operators have not kept up.

Management took the opportunity of negotiating over the 35 hour week (which signalling grades were the last PSD area to get) to introduce some pretty nasty strings of their own - significant numbers of job cuts and changes to grading amongst others. So in December 2004 RMT balloted all service control members for strike action, achieving an overwhelming "yes" vote, and 2 24 hour strikes were called - New Year's Eve and 3 / 4 January. There was frantic negotiation before Christmas, leaving many members to discover from the press that the strikes had actually been called off late on Christmas Eve, as little information was coming from RMT head office.

Whilst I was against striking on New Year's Eve - we should be hitting the first day back at work in the city, rather than people who want to go out and have a good time - it must be said that the feeling on the ground was extremely strong, and the strike would have been very well supported and made a big impact. By calling off the strike, people were demobilised and demoralised, sat around waiting to see what happened next.

The "fantastic deal" was put to referendum ballot and accepted by roughly 70% to 30% (don't recall the exact turnout but it was pretty good for a postal ballot). Bearing in mind that letters were going to every individual from Bob Crow, every other day, saying "this is the best deal we can possibly get", "we risk losing what we have gained if we reject this deal" etc. etc. the 30+% voting against was a very high no vote and showed the level of dissatisfaction with the deal.

Problems with the deal:

1. Job cuts - there were still a significant number of job cuts. Most of these were absorbed by people taking severance, however some of the Modern Apprentices got displaced to jobs on the stations.

2. Grading - it created 3 separate grades of signal operators (now called service operators) plus service operator 4 which used to be senior signal operator. Service Operator 1 is rostered positions at the quieter cabins, 2 is rostered at the busier cabins, 3 is reserve. This is divisive, it is also unfair - most of the quieter cabins are single-person which means more lone working and more nights than most of the busier cabins. Plus whether the cabin is busy or quiet the responsibility of the job is essentially the same. There are also local peculiarities - e.g. Amersham is rated SO1 but they have to interface with National Rail (Chiltern trains come on to LU tracks at Amersham), Waterloo (Waterloo and City) is rated SO1 but service operators there perform at least some of the duties normally done by line controllers in other locations. It is fair enough, I think, that reserves should get a little more because their shifts are much more unpredictable and they get mucked about, rostered staff know what they are doing week to week. But the principle of introducing different rates of pay for people doing basically the same job is one we should oppose.
3. Money - it didn't meet the claim of parity between drivers and signal operators. The SO3 rate of pay (the highest rate for a signal operator in the cabins) is less than that of a Train Operator - which our union reps now justify by stating that when we had parity before, it was before OPO and drivers now receive more because they don't have guards - but more responsibilities and modern technologies have also been thrust into signal cabins. To add insult to injury, managers within service control have generally done much better out of this deal than the lower grades - the opposite to how it should be!

The implementation of the deal has also been shambolic to say the least. Union reps on the implementation team have been at times less than forthcoming with information, leaving staff on the ground with long periods of uncertainty about whether they would have jobs as signallers or not. People have gone on severance without their replacements being fully trained - which means that, from a situation where 18 months ago large numbers of people were being threatened with redeployment, we are now in a situation where management are struggling to cover duties. In some areas managers are having to cover service operator shifts (ha ha ha!) and some service operators are reportedly working overtime - something we must continue to argue against, especially whilst there are still displaced apprentices working on the stations - working overtime is effectively taking those people's jobs in the signal cabins.

This is a bad deal which has been badly implemented. Thank you so much Pat Sikorski (he was the RMT lead negotiator on this "wonderful deal"). Some signal operators - who were prepared to take strike action at the end of 2004 - are so demoralised and despondent that they have left the RMT. It is going to take some time for the RMT to regain lost ground in service control - a good start would be leading a vigorous fight against some of the new attacks (such as imposition of new technology which doesn't work well and makes the job harder) which we are currently facing. Some RMT reps especially health and safety are doing a great job on this, but it needs more centralised leadership. The re-founding of the Service Control Grades Committee (formerly signalling grades committee) of RMT London Transport Regional Council gives a good forum for service control reps and activists to organise ourselves, we should use it.