Workers' Liberty

Some people are getting quite excited about the rapidly-increasing inflation figures. After all, if the February RPI figure (published next month) is, say, 3.5%, then we will get a 4% pay rise.

It’s this time of year again and management once again are playing guessing games – will we get our new bonus or not?

Following a two-day RMT strike over the festive season, EDF Powerlink staff have won a 16% increase on overtime rates and a joint working party on pay, and have forced the company to drop plans to tak

It’s a good job that Tube workers and rank-and-file union reps are up for a fight about pay - because it does not look much like our union leaders are.

It looks like the fight for a decent pay rise could be on again, after a big meeting of RMT reps yesterday voted unanimously to reject the offer and renew the campaign.

Fresh from implying that we are 'greedy' for not wanting a pay cut, Boris Johnson has been embarrased by a deputy caught abusing the City Hall credit card for his own comforts.

Management insist on basing their pay 'offer' on the Retail Price Index (RPI). The unions argue (correctly) that at present, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) more accurately represents inflation as it affects working people.

LUL management's latest ruse to punish staff is to dock your pay if you have a family emergency.

London MPs are to trouser a pay rise of more than 9% while our bosses tell us its 1% only followed by four more years of real-terms pay cuts for us.

Will we get £500 or £250 for our Customer Satisfaction Bonus? We've been asking as often as we have about our pay rise!

Tubeworker has been pondering LUL management's ridiculous 'argument' that because we live in changeable economic times, we need the 'stability' of a five-year pay freeze/cut.

If so, it's not funny.

Before Xmas we reported on EDF Powerlink workers' (the technicians who help supply the current to the Tube) fight for pay parity with day workers, which means they are demanding an extra £3 grand a year.

It seems that some staff have got it into their heads that we shouldn't demand a decent pay rise this year because of the economic crisis.

If we are to win a decent pay rise this year, we need to break the bad habits of past years.

The first round of pay talks is looming, and RMT has announced its claim, as follows:

So LUL management want some of us to work on Christmas Day but are only prepared to offer us double pay and one poxy day off in lieu which we would have got anyway?! Scrooge lives on, apparently.

Don't forget tonight's RMT members' meeting, 6.30pm, Friends House. Discuss the pay claim and plan our defence of victimised activists and members.

Cleaners employed by ICS and Initial are not receiving the London Living Wage, even though they are contrated by Metronet, who have promised it.

To see CBS poster workers and TubeLines standing up for inflation-plus pay rises last month showed the way forward for workers in LUL, TfL and others as we build towards a fight over next year's pay rise.

RMT has suspended its strike action after TubeLines made the following two-year offer:

Year 1:

• 4.99% pay rise, backdated to 1st April 2008.
  
  

Workers at CBS, the company who have the contracts for putting up advertising posters on the Tube, have gone on strike over pay and a list of injustices that have mounted over the years.

Funny how a company can make huge profits but still 'can't afford' to give its workers a decent pay rise. Or not so funny, if you work for TubeLines.

Our current pay deal on LUL runs out next April, but the fight for a decent new deal must start now.

LUL Employee communications released the CSS (Customer Satisfaction Survey) results for 2007/8 in an internal bulletin on the 10th April.

Our beloved leader Tim O'Toole has written to us again. Bless him for taking time out of his busy schedule to keep us informed of the state of play of our magnificent system.

Meanwhile, TubeLines have settled for a two-year deal with a 4% rise this year.

Employee Relations Director Gerry Duffy has given a few hints as to what might be coming our way in the upcoming pay negotiations.

RMT has submitted its pay claim to TubeLines, and TubeLines has responded. So the opening skirmishes will begin.

RMT has asked for a one-year deal and a 'substantial' pay rise for staff. It is the general practice of the union not to put a figure on its pay claims. Tubeworker tends to think that it would be better if it did, so that the workforce knows what it is fighting for, and can see if the union is trying to sell it short. Which, we suspect, is why the union bureaucracy prefers the vague term 'substantial'!

At Stratford Tribunal on 2 December, a decision was given that awards an AG1 six years back pay on an equal pay case that lasted three days. After hearing evidence that brings the whole question of performance-related pay into question, the Tribunal refused LUL the right to appeal a decision that could send shock waves around the business world.