A letter to Tubeworker subscribers.
Dear Tubeworker subscriber
JOIN OUR CAMPAIGN FOR A BETTER DEAL FOR RESERVE AND POOL TUBE WORKERS
Across many grades, reserve/pool staff get a raw deal. Your working life can be chaos - not knowing your duties until a few days before, last-minute changes which mess up your family and social life, and a lack of proper facilities.
Reserve and pool staff do not have enough rights. But, to make matters worse, LUL management does not even honour the rights we are supposed to have. For example, reserve station staff are supposed to get 28 days' notice of duties, which should not be changed without seeking the agreement of the worker concerned and his/her union rep. We know for a fact that this routinely does not happen. Now, LUL is even using its new computer system as an excuse to scrap agreements for fixed rest days for reserves ('rest-day rostering').
Tubeworker is determined to put a stop to this abuse, and to win a better deal for reserves. As socialists, we believe that your life comes first, and your work should fit around it. LUL management seem to believe the opposite: that they own you, and that if you must have a life outside work, then you should squeeze it in around the shifts that the company wants you to do.
Tubeworker wants to work with the trade unions on this, and believes that some concerted rank-and-file pressure can kick the unions into action.
Here are some of our initial ideas about the campaign, and why we need your help.
1. What we want:
- 28 days notice of duties for all reserve and pool staff.
- No change to these duties without your agreement.
- More rostered posts with more spare turns on the roster - so that more staff get the chance to be rostered.
- Lockers for reserves, with the right to book on at the location where your locker is and travel to your work location in company time.
- An extra pay allowance for reserve and pool staff (as existed before the Company Plan).
- All staff to be told their rights, and these rights to be upheld.
Tell us: Do you support these demands? Is there anything you would add?
2. We know that the way reserve and pool staff are treated varies in different grades and locations. Staff are at the mercy of the goodwill (and competence) of local management. We need to get an accurate and comprehensive picture of the situation.
Tell us what happens where you work.
3. Come to our Tubeworker meeting on Tuesday 27 January at 17:00 (ring 07748-185553 for venue details) to discuss this campaign.
What should we be doing? Telling reserve staff their rights? Going round the locations with information and petitions? Supporting individual workers who take a stand and refuse to have their duties changed? Building for a meeting to involve rank-and-file Tube workers in organising for their rights?
Getting local union reps to raise the issue at Level 1 meetings? Getting the issue up to the Functional Councils? Raising it in union branches, grades committees and conferences?
Come and tell us your views and ideas.