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.

If you are an Underground worker with a tale to tell, email Tubeworker.

The views expressed in Tubeworker and on this blog are those of the authors, not of London Underground Ltd or TfL. Obviously.

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Tunnel Vision

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

Read it here. Buy it here.


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WL magazine


 

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Tubeworker's blog

2009 Agreement Sees Drivers Forced Off Roster

District line

Drivers are feeling the effects of the woeful 2009 Agreement as management come after jobs.


Solid Signals Strike

Disputes

Yesterday's strike of ex-Metronet signals staff was 100% solid, and even spread to fleet staff who refused to cross picket lines.


Bang!

District line

Last week, the reaction to unattended packages on London Underground trains hit explosive new levels.


Jezza Will Fix It

Fares and Ticketing

It’s all fun in Travel Information land because we are getting very interesting calls about the minimum £5 top up charge at booking offices.


Freudian Slip?

Piccadilly line

It seems that a big cheese manager, keen to bolster staff morale, was careless enough to describe the Piccadilly line as the "workhouse" of the Underground when he surely meant the "workhorse".


Signalling Our Strength

Disputes

A stonkingly high Yes vote for industrial action has shown that signal technicians are well up for a fight against management's attempts to impose new, anti-social rosters.


Sign This!

Fares and Ticketing

Tubeworker is happy to recommend readers sign RMT's online petition against job cuts and ticket office closures.

Click here.


Action at Alstom

Disputes

Jubilee Line train maintainers at Stratford Market Depot are striking for pay parity with the Northern Line.


Situations Vacant

Northern line

With engineering work on the Northern line this weekend, management's freeze on stations vacancies is seeing some chickens coming fluttering home to roost.


Bonus balls up – again!

Pay

It’s this time of year again and management once again are playing guessing games – will we get our new bonus or not?


Wot No Trousers?!

Performance management

We all know that mystery shopper results bear no relation to the hard work we do. But here’s an example that shows just how meaningless they are.


Staff Resist £5 Minimum

Fares and Ticketing

Across the job, staff are happily ignoring London Underground's £5 minimum Oyster top-up policy. After all, who wants grief from understandably-annoyed cusomters?


Defend Bakerloo Drivers

Anti-Victimisation Disputes

Very good ballot result from Bakerloo line drivers to defend workmates Fitz and Joel.


TubeLines Hits the Buffers?

TubeLines

TubeLines got a nasty shock last month when the PPP Arbiter turned down its over-the-top demands for funding for the second part of its PPP contract.


EDF Workers Win

Disputes

Following a two-day RMT strike over the festive season, EDF Powerlink staff have won a 16% increase on overtime rates and a joint working party on pay, and have forced the company to drop plans to tak


Fares Fair?

Fares and Ticketing

Since January 2nd, if you fail to touch in or out with your Oyster, you will be stung for £6! TfL says it's because Oyster is now on national rail. But they must be hearing the cash roll in already.


Wot No Fire Cover?

Hammersmith & City and Circle lines

Last month, there was water ingress at Paddington and the Fire Control Panel did not work. So had there been a fire, the system would not necessarily have kicked in to detect and suppress it.


Grief Over a Fiver

Fares and Ticketing

The £5 minimum Oyster top-up policy came into force on Saturday, and staff have been getting spadeloads of grief.


Bank Robbery

Central line

Bank station has recenty finished phase 1 of its upgrade project. Phase 2 is soon to follow, starting in February or March, with further phases after that.

The station has had additional CSAs to ensure that the extra work generated by the project can be carried out. So you might think that those CSAs should stay on the station for phase 2. But management have a different idea - boot them out and let the SRT do the work instead.


OXO Minimum Staffing Levels Cut?

Bakerloo Line

Management are trying to cut minimum staffing numbers at Oxford Circus station - and you can bet that if they are trying it on there, they will try it on elsewhere too. Your station could be next!


RMT Throws in the Towel - Without Even a Mandate

Disputes

Many RMT reps and members are shocked at the union's decision to accept the company's pay offer that until that point it had told us was "unacceptable", and to do so the day after a ballot result in which over 3,000 members voted for action short of strikes against it.


The Future of the Planet is Too Important to be Left to the Bosses!

The environment

World leaders have converged on Copenhagen, Denmark, for the UN Climate Change Conference; the notional aim is to put together a new global treaty on the climate, possibly to be signed next year and to come into effect when the Kyoto Treaty runs out in 2012.


Vicious Circle

Hammersmith & City and Circle lines

The new Circle line - confusing for passengers, more work for station staff, forcing passengers to change at Edgware Road (up and down stairs, not easy for people who are mobility impaired, with pushchairs and luggage). The critical position of Edgware Road means that problems there impact heavily on the whole of the sub-surface lines.


Defend Fitz and Joel

Anti-Victimisation Disputes

Bakerloo line management have sacked two drivers in separate incidents.


Support BA Cabin Crew Strike!

Anti-union laws

Just like us, British Airways cabin crew are transport workers facing attacks on their jobs, pay and conditions.


When Night Falls

Staffing Levels

Readers may have had the delight of perusing management's half-arsed effort to deny - or at least play down, since it wasn't actually a denial - RMT's leak of their job-cutting plans.


Displacement Threat Again?

Staffing Levels

London Underground management are again rattling their sabres about potentially displacing "over-establishment" station staff.


Weak Leadership from Unions in Pay Fight

Jobs/Pay/Justice Dispute 2009

It’s a good job that Tube workers and rank-and-file union reps are up for a fight about pay - because it does not look much like our union leaders are.


Phone Charges Rise

Transport for London

Dear Tubeworker

I work in the Travel Information Department. It seems it is going to cost our punters much more to phone us if they use a mobile which most of them do. So TfL will make lotsa money.


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