Tubeworker's blog

Tubeworker: a platform
for rank-and-file workers, telling you what the bosses and bureaucrats won't.

Since the '80s, Tubeworker has been a printed bulletin distributed among London Underground workers. Download printed issues here.

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Tunnel Vision

- a Workers' Liberty pamphlet about London Underground's Public-Private Partnership and
the fight against it.

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Navigation

Attendance and Discipline

Tube employers' policies on sickness, absence and discipline - and our efforts to fight for justice


Anti-Victimisation Disputes

Campaigns for justice for sacked and unfairly-treated workmates


LUL Attendance, Performance and Conduct at Work 2006

LUL's abortive attempt to bring in new, draconian sickness and discipline policies


Finding Out Facts

Attendance and Discipline

It seems that on Green Park group, management have added an extra stage to the attendance/discipline procedure. Now, you have a 'fact-finding interview' before being sent to an LDI.


Acton Town Drivers To Ballot For Strikes

Attendance and Discipline

Drivers at Bollo House (Acton Town) have had enough of the management regime in their depot and have asked RMT to ballot them for strike action.


Don't Say A Word

Attendance and Discipline

It seems that some managers have got it into their heads that reps should not be allowed to speak at LDIs. Yes, you read that right.


Beware The Rainbow

Attendance and Discipline

Management's latest wheeze for bullying the sick is the 'rainbow chart'.


Corrective Action Plan

Attendance and Discipline

At Earls Court control centre, management have introduced 'corrective action plans'. A member of staff gets so many 'items' and they are hauled off by a manager to 'agree' and implement a plan.


Read It?

Attendance and Discipline

Tubeworker wonders whether duty managers actually read policies before using them to bash staff.


Light Duties?

Attendance and Discipline

The light duties team have been sending CSAs to spy on other staff as part of their light duties, such as sending them on trains to listen to drivers' PA's.


Seasonal Sickness

Attendance and Discipline

Management have this policy that they can require you to produce a medical certificate from day one of sickness in certain circumstance - on public holidays, on strike days, or if you have a poor sickness record.


The Sickness Inquisition Strikes Again

Attendance and Discipline

It seems that management's crusade for 100% attendance has plumbed new depths, as they have taken to carting off staff who are at work doing full duties and subjecting them to medical scrutiny!


Staff forced back to work sick

Attendance and Discipline

The practice of stopping a persons pay while off sick has to be challenged by our Unions.


10% Worst Attenders

Attendance and Discipline

Management have a new campaign as part of their relentless drive to persecute the sick. They are targeting the '10% worst attenders'.


East Ham: Unwelcome New Regime

Attendance and Discipline

East Ham group's new GSM is busy making himself very unpopular with staff.


Road Crash? Have A Warning!

Attendance and Discipline

Note to Buckhurst Hill group management. If one of your staff has a motorbike crash on the way to work, in uniform, and has to be taken to hospital in an ambulance for emergency treatment, then you should offer them sympathy and support - not an attendance warning.


Needed: Regime Change

Attendance and Discipline

Piccadilly line drivers are getting well naffed off with the regime on the line following the recent-ish arrival of a new performance manager.

One driver's employment was terminated after less than two months off sick. Another was sacked - upheld on appeal - following a driving error which was serious but no more serious than errors made by other drivers who were not sacked. And when a manager complained about another manager threatening him, both of them were sacked!


Knock, knock ... Who's there?!

Attendance and Discipline

Imagine being off sick, there's a knock on your door and ... it's a manager! That's what happened to a member of station staff on the Bakerloo centre group.

'Home visits' are supposed to happen only under certain conditions - the option of meeting at work instead, adequate notice, and the right to union representation.


Can We "Live With" This Sick System?!

Attendance and Discipline

RMT's latest Official Circular copies to members a letter from the union to LUL management on various industrial relations issues. In amongst comments on later running, redeployment policy and other issues, there lies a rather alarming statement about the Attendance Policy ... "Even though we have never formally agreed and accepted the implementation of any such policy, we feel that the present policy is something that our members can live with and see no reason to enter into any consultation process that may involve proposed revisions."


Tube Worker: Do Not Feed

Attendance and Discipline

LUL management seem to think that their authority extends way beyond the Tube. Now they reckon that as well as telling us what to do, they can even tell doctors what to do! How's that for multi-functional?!


The Best Cure For Sickness = Work!

Attendance and Discipline

Oh yes it is! At least according to a leaflet sponsored by TfL.

Medicine? Rest? Recovery? Pah - they're for wimps! A hard day's graft is what you sickly types need.


Sick? Sacked!

Attendance and Discipline

Asked by a business owner what to do with a worker who has been off sick for several weeks, Ken Livingstone replied:
(a) allow their doctor to help them recover their health?


Sick or what?

Attendance and Discipline

A driver's wife has a stroke and needs three brain operations. Over this very difficult and stressful period, the driver continues to attend work, having just a little time off with domestic leave. He also has six shifts off sick, adding up to two items, so ... management give him a warning. And uphold it on appeal.


Fallen Hero?

Attendance and Discipline

The shine wears off your halo pretty damn quickly when LUL is your boss. So you are a driver who led people to safety after a near-miss bomb blast? So you still get flashbacks?


What Are Management Up To?

Attendance and Discipline

As if we weren’t already despondent, what with having the fantastic strike action undermined by scabs, only for RMT HQ to recommend a Yes vote on an unimproved offer … Lump this together with the grief over displacements and staffing cuts and we have had quite enough to deal with recently. Well, perhaps not urprisingly, LUL/TfL have smelt blood and are coming back for more.


Your Right to a Rep?

Attendance and Discipline

It looks like LUL management are getting the hump about those pesky workers standing up for their rights. More and more of us are having the cheek to demand union representation at Fact Finding interviews.


What Are They On?

Attendance and Discipline

When a Morden Train Maintainer with 30 years' service was sacked recently, something very ominous came to light. It seems that Alstom and TubeLines now have a policy to D&A test staff as part of their annual relicensing.

Underground employers already have the power to test us post incident, for cause, and unannounced. So this extra testing round is not about keeping people bright-eyed and sober, but about keeping us under an ever-more-authoritarian thumb.

If Alstom and TubeLines get away with this, you can bet that Metronet and LUL will be next. So let's unite to stop it.


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