Workers' Liberty

On Greenford group - and maybe elsewhere - management have altered the targets for revenue activity, taking the emphasis off actually selling tickets and shifting it towards encouraging customers not

Management have produced a hilarious question-and-answer thingy about their plan to slaughter ticket offices.

Management are piling attack upon attack on Underground staff: security guards, agency staff, mobile supervision, direct recruitment of drivers, ticket office cuts and closures ...

Back in 2004, Workers' Liberty (the group which publishes Tubeworker) produced a pamphlet, Tunnel Vision, which reviewed the fight against the Public-Private Partnership. In it, we included an article called Where next?.

Tubeworker readers will know that LUL has agreed to delay the implementation of the ticket office cuts and closures until autumn 2008.

But while management may have agreed a delay, they are clearly determined to press ahead with the cuts. It seems that infraco surveyors continue to visit stations and measure up the ticket offices for demolition.

Following management's decision to put back the implementation date for the ticket office closures, RMT's Executive has responded by ... suspending its dispute!

This is a mistake. Although the implementation date has been put back - probably as a favour to Ken Livingstone and his re-election chances - the plan is still going ahead, the timescale for local consultation unaltered. The union's ultimatum to management was 'withdraw your plan or we are in dispute'. Management have not withdrawn their plan, so we should be in dispute!

Management have put back the implementation date for the ticket office cuts and closures from March 2008 to 'at least' next Summer. This follows a letter from RMT demanding that unless LUL shelve the plans, the union would be in dispute. Well, if one stiff letter can cause a delay to the plans, then imagine what a concerted campaign could do!

RMT and TSSA are jointly hosting a rally to protest at London Underground's ticket office cuts and closures plan.

Dear Tubeworker

LUL's savage ticket office cuts will even wipe out some of the jobs they created under the stations 35-hour week! Staff who transferred to a location they had been waiting for will now be forced out, and staff who were displaced into them will be displaced out again!

Management would have you believe that ticket offices have to be closed because of the effects of new technology, implying that those of us who oppose the cuts are some kind of Luddites.

Tubeworker warned earlier this year that Station Supervisors' jobs were under threat, as the new Rule Books stripped the grade of many of its responsibilities.

Fancy an SAMF's job? Then pop down to your local JobCentre!

Believe the bare-faced cheek of it or not, management are actually talking about direct (ie.external) recruitment of SAMFs. Yes, this is at the same time that they are planning to get rid of 270+ SAMF positions and are making it as hard as possible for CSAs to get promoted.

Does anyone still think management are 'consulting' in good faith about the ticket office closures?

Management's plan to more-than-decimate our ticket offices continues apace. And there is a real mood amongst rank-and-file workers to fight back against it. Passengers too. A petition put together by staff at Boston Manor has already gathered more than 2,000 signatures. Repeat this across the stations and we would be well on our way to building the momentum we need to stop these cuts.

We all know that Tube workers are strongest when all grades act together. And there are good reasons why other grades should defend the 270+ SAMF posts that are currently under threat.

Remember management saying they planned to close 40 ticket offices and cut dozens more? Turns out that's only the tip of the iceberg, as it emerges that virtually every ticket office on the Underground is to be cut. Most people would call that 'bare-faced lying'; we could not possibly comment.

Management argue that changes in customer ticket-buying behaviour are behind their move to close 40 ticket offices and cut dozens more. But they are well short of evidence.

They have documents and graphs. But while they claim that statistics show reduced usage of ticket offices, they seemed very guarded about revealing the figures.

09:45, Thursday 19th July, London Underground HQ, 55 Broadway, next to St. James' Park station.

Called by RMT

LUL's ticket office closure plan will force many SAMFs to be displaced, including many who were displaced only just over a year ago under the 35-hour week.

RMT reps met yesterday to discuss the fight against ticket office cuts and closures.

Reps reported widespread anger and opposition to the cuts. LUL seems to want people to buy tickets at newsagents rather than Tube stations, but as one rep pointed out, it doesn't matter how many thousands of newsagents sell Oyster, people will still turn up to Tube stations expecting to be able to buy Tube tickets. Imagine going to the cinema and asking for two tickets to see the new Harry Potter film, only to be told "Go back outside, along the street a bit, there's a newsagent on your right, buy your tickets there and come back for the film"!

Remember the special events team? It has resurfaced as the 'special requirements team', and management want it to be paid for by the ticket office closures.

Excuse us, the 'special events team' was part of the stations shorter working week deal, and we (more than) paid for it then. LUL, obviously feeling rather cocky, now seem to think that they can make us pay for it twice!

LUL is determined to press ahead with its ticket offices cuts and closures, despite the devastating effect on both customer service and our working conditions. Staff at many stations will now have seen that their station is in the firing line and will know that we need to fight off this attack. If your station is not on the list, then don't go breathing a sigh of relief - you will pick up the workload from the closed offices at other stations, and yours could well be in the next wave of closures that will inevitably follow this one.

The ticket offices LUL proposes to close are:

Barkingside, Becontree, Boston Manor, Buckhurst Hill, Cannon Street, Canons Park, Chesham, Chiswick Park, Chorleywood, Croxley, Debden, East Putney, Fairlop, Hornchurch, Goldhawk Road, Ickenham, Latimer Road, Mansion House, Mill Hill East, Moor Park, North Ealing, North Harrow, Northwood Hills, Park Royal, Perivale, Ravenscourt Park, Regents Park, Royal Oak, Ruislip, Ruislip Gardens, South Ruislip, Sudbury Hill, Temple, Totteridge & Wealdstone, Upney, West Acton, West Finchley, West Harrow, West Ruislip and Wimbledon Park.

Dear Tubeworker

I visited the East End of the District Line and witnessed ticket offices only being allowed to open in the peak and expected to open to give information at other times. Guess what information Joe Public wanted? Can you please sell me a ticket? As the answer was 'no' and a load of abuse was received, the shutters went up and staff monitor the station from behind the screens on CCTV. I spoke with a 20 year RMT member who said he thought he was going mad! I witnessed a ticket office closed advising passengers to buy tickets at the local newsagents - !?

At the Stations Functional Council meeting yesterday, LUL management dropped their bombshell - 40 ticket office to close completely, 240 SAMF jobs to go. That's "bombshell" not in the sense of being a surprise: it has long been obvious that further attacks were on the cards. (The Workers' Liberty pamphlet reviewing the fight against PPP mentioned exactly this possibility in its Where next? article.) Although 140 new CSA and SS jobs will be created to form a 'special requirements team', this hardly sweetens the pill of the savage ticket office job cull.

If you've got a refurb coming up at your station, watch out ... You could see it reopen minus a ticket office.

That's what awaits staff at Regent's Park, where the refurb has included designing out the ticket office. It's gone. Completely.

Note to Central Line management ... If you justify slashing SAMF jobs at the largest station on your line (Bank) by closing one of its ticket offices, then it stands to reason that when you finally see sense and reopen the office, you have to bring back at least a couple of the jobs you cut.

Following on from the theme of Ticket Office closures this memo was sent out by a GSM regarding Sales from Ticket Offices and I quote directly from this

A recent review at senior level,of the ticket office opening times and working practices agreed to the following:-