Workers' Liberty

We are heading for a strike ballot over the pay claim. More than ever, we should be prepared to dig our heels in and reject LUL’s derisory offer.

Firstly, we must not accept performance-related pay (PRP). The unions negotiate our wages collectively, and argue for a proper, basic, pensionable rise. If LUL has its way, an ever-increasing portion of your salary will be decided not by unions or even management, but by some outside agency conducting customer surveys.

PRP would divide us. And can you really see some manager erring on our side when deciding whether you have reached your targets?!

Secondly, the company is pushing for a multi-year deal with no guarantees not to attack our wages and conditions within that time period. If we agree to a 4-year deal, there will be no ticket offices open and no staff on barriers outside zone 1 by 2010! Tubeworker reckons that the negotiators should not even discuss a two-year deal with the company. Management have proven time and again that they can not be trusted.

While it would be good to see ASLEF and TSSA join this fight, they can not be relied upon to deliver the goods. But RMT is the biggest and the only multi-grade union on the Underground. We are strong and wise enough not to be out-manoevred by LUL’s pie-in-the-sky deals.

Once again, we are not even starting the fight until five months after this year’s rise should have come in! In future, the union should submit our claim six months before the April deadline so management can’t get away with stalling things in the hope that staff are so desperate to get their back pay in time for Christmas that they will accept an inadequate deal.

That’s for future years. This year, the fight may be late, but it is (nearly) on. Despite disappointments with other recent disputes, we must all be ready to fight.

A single-year deal with no strings will do us fine for now. Let’s not allow management to set the agenda. If they are looking for a fight, we are ready when they are.