Workers' Liberty

Tubeworker of 25/10/04 supports the campaign for the reinstatement of Joanne White, a Station Assistant at Embankment unfairly sacked by LUL. It recommends a vote for John Leach in the election for the region's representative on the RMT Executive. Read the back page text below. Download page 2 here, and page one here.



Hats Off

Tubeworker has often reported the views of station staff that hats are pompous, uncomfortable and unnecessary. At last, after RMT lobbying, management have been forced to agree. The last few summers have been so hot that LUL has had to let us take our hats off, and guess what? Customers did not complain, safety was not affected, the world did not end. So now hats are optional all year round.

It’s a great victory for staff, but one thing still worries us. What are DSMs going to do with their time now?


Unfair Dismissal

Staff at Moorgate are signing a petition for an SA who has been sacked. A passenger verbally abused her, hit her with her radio, and came back for more. The SA’s alleged crime was talking back and not getting away fast enough.

It may take more than a petition to get justice, so Tubeworker urges Moorgate staff to turn up the heat on LUL.


Real Time

Since the East London line reopened with new stations and more driving work, the unions have asked for trips to be retimed. This was agreed at Level 1, but then Functional-level management overturned it. So the timetable goes out of the window and drivers are put under awful pressure.

ASLEF is talking about balloting; RMT is going to ACAS. Tubeworker has to ask: shouldn’t the unions agree a joint strategy? Meanwhile, T/Ops are driving according to the real-world demands of the job. And who can blame them?


Oyster Rip-Off

LUL has admitted that Oyster prepay is not capping a day’s fares at the price of a one-day Travelcard, so they have been paying through the nose when they make lots of journeys on one day.

Unfortunately, whoever at LUL/TfL is responsible for this rip-off will not be standing on the gateline getting feedback from the irate customers. No, that will be us. And some of the feedback will take the form of assaults.


Danger Signals

LUL has downgraded an Arnos Grove driver over a SPAD. So ASLEF has rightly said: reverse this outrageous decision or face industrial action. We all need to support this driver and his union’s action to defend him.

LUL’s crackdown on T/Ops over SPADs is an issue for us all. PPP has meant that work to correct poorly-located signals has not yet been done. And LUL is not sticking to its own policy on dealing with SPADs.


TeamTalk

Finsbury Park group decided that staff would be delighted to have a TeamTalk after dealing with 40,000 Arsenal fans on a Saturday. Of course, staff couldn’t wait to hear whether their DSM had achieved their targets for that quarter.

What management fail to realise is that staff are genuinely interested in the running of a railway but really couldn’t give a monkey’s about the company’s latest PR exercise.


Wot, no driver?

High-speed trains which can run without drivers are being tested at Highgate. They can run only 300 yards apart and management hope to roll them out on the Jubilee line by 2009 and the Picc by 2014.

We have been told in the past about how technology will revolutionise Tube travel, but remember the JLE fiasco and terrible signalling problems on the Central line. Tubeworker has a premonition: thousands of passengers stuck down the pipe for ages in ever-increasing temperatures while the boffins at TubeLines and Metronet tinker with the latest computer glitch.


Plastered

Manor House is having refurb work during engineering hours. One night, the ceiling was plastered, but the job had not dried when traffic started. So the first trains rattled through and whoops, the plaster collapsed over the westbound platform.

You might think that refurb work would be given enough time to be done properly. But that might have involved closing the station and losing revenue, and we can’t have that. So we end up with the station closed anyway, and LUL with egg on its face as well as plaster on its platform.


Shorter Working Week

Surprise (not), the talks about bringing in the shorter working week have broken down with LUL claiming they got their sums wrong and now can not afford it.

Before our strike, members made it clear to the unions that nothing short of a reduction in the working week would be good enough. Lo and behold, LUL/TfL made pie-in-the-sky promises and once the dispute was over and the momentum lost, reneged on their ‘honourable’ intentions.

Maybe if disputes were run by elected strike committees rather than bureaucrats, we would not be in this situation. We would either have a reduction in the working week or we would be in a dispute which we controlled. Instead it feels as if management have pulled the rug from under us.


The Long Arm of the Law

Most of you will have heard about the scandal of the Waterloo SA harrassed by police for weeks over an accusation of trying to sell her hat on e-bay, only to see the charges dropped. We have also heard about a Picc Line RCI arrested and persecuted for, erm, doing his job, which again saw the charges dropped as soon as the CPS looked at it.
Spot the pattern. Whilst Tube staff are exonerated in the end, it is only after months of stress. It is time for urgent action to get the BTP under control.


Drivers Win Dust Victory

Drivers on the Picc and Vic campaigning against unhealthy dust levels insisted on the right to wear masks, but were told that if they did, they would be stood down. Undaunted, the drivers planned a day of protest when they would all wear the masks, and guess what? Managers backed down and agreed to let them wear masks.



Reserves deserve better

Tubeworker has been campaigning for a better deal for reserve staff. We’ve won some steps forward, with the Stations & Revenue Council agreeing that duties must be properly notified and your agreement sought over any changes.

But in reality, this is patchy on the ground. Staff at Victoria often only have their duties for a couple of weeks ahead (or less), and get duties, and even rest days, changed without consultation. The unions need to go into battle with local management about this, and reserve staff at Victoria and elsewhere need to know your rights – 28 days notice, no change to rest days, consultation over duty changes. Don’t stand for anything less.