Steve Griffiths published yesterday in a bulletin to staff: "you may have seen media reports suggesting that we have deferred Night Tube. I can confirm that we are operationally ready for 12 September, but not at any cost".
It reads as though Steve is desperately trying to say, "I've done my job, Boris Johnson! Night Tube would definitely have been on time if it was up to me. If it's late, don't blame me, blame the unions".
But is LU "operationally ready"? It's been trying to look "ready" for a couple of weeks. It has published timetables and rosters to give the impression that all is going to plan.
But many stations do not know if they are getting extra staff yet. In a lot of stations, barriers between the closed and the all-night sections of the stations still haven't been built. Local risk assessments have not been done, which is a concern, especially for the staff that will be working alone all night.
Tubeworker would not have wanted LU to skip the top level union discussions about terms and conditions that have prevented us moving onto local issues. The point is that LU should have started talking with unions soon enough and with enough seriousness that, if acceptable terms were offered, we could have resolved local problems and felt ready to bring Night Tube in on time.
Instead, LU has wasted months stonewalling us and trying to bully us into working in a way we could not accept. Now, Night Tube is not ready. Whatever LU may claim, the responsibility for this lies firmly with LU for the stance it has adopted over recent months.
LU's insistence that it is "operationally ready" is a bluff to appease those who wanted Night Tube to be their political legacy. It is also a bullying tactic to guilt-trip staff into accepting unacceptable terms. Even if we gave up all our principles and said yes to LU's offer tomorrow, there would be not enough time before 12 September to allow for 28 days' notice of duties, roster consultation, risk assessments or other processes!
LU wanted to bully us into submission rather than work with us to make Night Tube happen. Now it is at risk of failing to deliver on the promise it made to London. Instead of bluffing and shifting blame, it should be honest about its failings.
