A new agreement has appeared - the Trains Functional 2009 agreement. This new policy will see a reduction of spares and pool coverage, with drivers' posts lost from the establishment in some depots.
One sick aspect to this is that apparently one of management's pretexts is that improved attendance among drivers means that they don't need so much cover! So if we go along with management's pleading to improve our attendance, if we drag ourselves into work if we really don't feel too well, then our reward is - job cuts!
Tubeworker is never surprised to see management cutting jobs - getting fewer of us to do more for less is the main reason they get out of bed in the morning!
So although there may be some bits of the agreement that bring benefits, we can not accept that these come at the price of lost jobs. So we would expect our unions to roundly reject it. If so, we would be disappointed.
But shockingly, Trains Council agreed to it. ASLEF dominate the staff side and all bar one of them voted for it, so the Society bears most responsibility here. But while no RMT reps voted for it, not all voted against it!
Functional reps are released from the driving duties to represent us. They should remember that when workers elect union reps, we expect them to defend jobs, not to let them go.
