Workers' Liberty

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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."

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?!

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.

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?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.