Workers' Liberty

LUL's pay 'offer' is not just an insult, it is deliberately provocative. The company has had the bare-faced cheek to ask for a five-year settlement, without offering us anything to make it worth our while. They 'offer' only a poxy half-a-percent above inflation each year, and that to be dependant on us gaining an "achieved rating".

The company proposes a performance-related bonus scheme, where we would each get a couple of hundred quid so long as a customer satisfaction survey scores a high enough mark.

Tubeworker recently set out the many reasons why we should oppose performance-related pay in general. This scheme in particular is a joke. There is not even an objective measure of 'performance'. Rather, it is all down to whether passengers are in a good mood or not when some clipboard-wielding survey merchant collars them on the way to work.

The elusive 'customer satisfaction' depends on issues way beyond our control. For instance, Northern Line customers were hardly very 'satisfied' when the line closed because the emergency braking system failed. But that wasn't our fault - it was the fault of the Infraco and the whole ludicrous PPP set-up.

With LUL setting the height of the bar we have to jump to get the bonus, they have plenty of scope for cheating us out of what we have earned. At the same time, the 'offer' of bonuses gives the lie to the idea that they "can't afford" to give us a decent rise - if the company can afford bonuses, it can afford pay rises.

LUL's pay offer comes in a letter dated 12 days after the pay deal should have been implemented! Yet again, we are faced with months of wranglng, with the company hoping it will make us war-weary and we won't have the spirit to fight for more when Christmas starts to loom and the back pay owed builds up.

In response to this, the unions need to push for the whole process to speed up. For future years, they should hold special regional council meetings in the autumn, to agree a pay claim and submit it promptly, so the company has less room for dragging its feet.