Despite their best efforts, LUL have failed in their attempts to blackmail us into caving in to their multi-year deal.

Their refusal to pay the 4% now clearly illustrates their motive all along which was to impose draconian disciplinary, attendance and performance-related policies. They may keep going on about late running at the weekends etc, but that is just a red herring.

Management thought that just because the action surrounding the stations shorter working week was poorly organised, they'd start getting a bit macho. Just imagine if they could finish the only all-grades union on the Tube especially before the Olympic circus comes to town - they'd all be in line for the new year's honours list.

Fortunately we are made of sterner stuff. We have fought too long and hard to improve our wages and our conditions over the last few years to let them slip away again.

This time round, any action will not only involve station staff but train crew and signalling grades as well. This is a perfect opportunity to unite the different operational grades under one common pay agreement. Seeing as the TSSA have caved in as usual and ASLEF are nothing but vague and disorientated, this is also a fantastic way to recruit non members and those staff who are dissatisfied with the way their organisations have represented them.

The propaganda war has already started, continuing the string of untruths that have appeared on the intranet throughout the year. Management will argue that we are being unreasonable and that we are already paid enough. We should point out how much they all earn and exactly what their contribution to actually running the railway is. We are the ones doing the shifts, we are the ones working seven shifts in a row, we are the ones who face a barrage of abuse every time the fares go up or the infracos damage an asset or overrun into traffic hours. We are the ones who have to deal with drunk and abusive people day in, day out and we will be the ones who they expect to stay on later at the weekends and they won't even agree to staff taxis to your home.

It's quite true that we have good wages and conditions relative to other groups of workers, but that is only because we have not shrunk from taking action in the past to defend ourselves against the constant attacks from management and the government.

So first things first, let's make the ballot a resounding success, the bigger the 'YES' vote the more the company will be on the back foot. If your colleagues are not in the union, if they are under the illusion that we are acting unreasonably, challenge them. Do they really want performance-related pay? Are they in favour of an even worse attendance and discipinary procedure? It's not rocket science after all. There is a constant: management will always try to attack us and worsen our wages and conditions.

Fortunately we will always defend ourselves and stick together while they try to climb the greasy pole and stab each other in the back. UNITY IS STRENGTH. VOTE YES FOR ACTION BECAUSE YOU'RE WORTH IT.