Workers' Liberty

... or face strike action

It is unpredecented, and sickening, that LUL has left its staff to go through Christmas without giving us our pay rise. As of New Year's Day, the company has owed us the money for nine months.

There is not even any dispute about the amount of the rise, which is agreed at 4% - although some of us would have liked to see the unions press for more than this, especially for the lower-paid grades.

So why is LUL holding out? Well, it might be enjoying accruing interest on the money it hasn't paid us. But mainly, it is trying to blackmail the unions into accepting the rubbish that makes up the rest of their derisory offer - a multi-year deal that adds up to a pitiful 1% rise in real terms over a full three years. And that 1% could be wiped out by the expected increases in Council Tax, fuel and other bills.

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Management seem to have a deliberate strategy of trying to turn staff against the unions, and grades against each other. It's important that we don't fall for this trick, and instead make sure that it falls flat on its face.

Their circulars try to blame the RMT for the fact that LUL refuses to give us our pay rise! In fact, there is no good reason why they should not have paid it months ago, and LUL alone is to blame.

And they try to make out that disagreements about later running for drivers are holding up everyone's pay rise. The truth is that it is LUL which has insisted on linking later running with pay - the unions rightly wanted the two issues kept separate.

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RMT has now given LUL an ultimatum: agree to pay up by 18th January, or the union will ballot for strike action.

No-one can accuse RMT of rushing in to this ballot! In fact, lots of us would like to have seen the union take action considerably earlier, and not let things drag on this long. But at last now we are on the verge of action, and if LUL does not open up its wallet immediately, we must take action.

When we do strike, we need to plan the most effective action. Many Tube workers are coming to realise that one-day strikes are not very effective, as the company can use managers and admin to keep the service running. But if we strike for longer, or for more days in one week, they will find it much more of a struggle.

Tubeworker is not about to offer up a blueprint for exacly when and for how long we should strike - the key thing is that rank-and-file union members must come together, discuss and decide things democratically. Then we must all unite behind our agreed course of action.