It is now just a matter of time before London Underground officially reveals its job-cutting plan - what with Fleet management pushing "Auto-Prep", Mike Brown waxing lyrical about Station Supervisors with iPads meaning that stations can be left unstaffed, no denial from management of rumours of wholesale ticket office closures, and the ongoing threat of driverless trains.
But, while we have known for ages that Bad Things Are Coming, it is less clear to many Tube workers what we can or should do about it. If people don't feel confident that we can stop job cuts, then they tend to prioritise self-preservation instead - working out how to make sure that another person's job is cut, that another grade takes the hit, that the voluntary severance will be high enough.
THIS IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Such an individualistic approach is the road to bitterness and defeat. Instead, we need an effective, collective response. Through our unions, we have had victories in some skirmishes with the employers in the last few years. Those have given us some reason to be confident and some momentum to build on.
Here are some ideas that Tubeworker would like to suggest for discussion:
An all-grades fight. The attacks on fleet, stations, or any other function, are not separate; they are linked. They are all driven by management's desire, intensified by the 12.5% funding cut, to save money at all costs. We need unity to win.
But we are a fragmented workforce, and experience has shown that we can not just wish cross-grade unity into existence. We need to thrash out the arguments and convince all our workmates to come together. In the meantime, grades (such as Fleet) who are ready to fight back should not have to wait for others to catch up.
What are we waiting for? We will need to take industrial action soon. We can not say that we haven't seen these attacks coming. We know what is coming and what we think about it: the crucial thing is to fight back.
Imaginative, effective action. Token, one-day strikes do not work. A week-long action might! Better still, we should get rank-and-file reps and activists from all grades together to work out how we can maximise the impact, perhaps by taking action in ways different to those we have used before.
It's not 'business as usual' for union officials. With the best will in the world, union officials can get into a routine of meetings and talks, and the more distant they are from rank-and-file workers, the more problematic that can become. Our representatives and officers need to be telling us what is happening in talks when it is happening, visiting our workplaces and getting information out.
Workers and passengers unite. We can get support from passengers - they want and need a reliable, accessible, safe Tube service, and that is exactly what they are not going to get if the Underground is stripped of staff.
