Since February, station staff have been living with the impact of the OSP job cuts: anti-social rosters and staff shortages. Staff are also learning to live with new attacks, such as enhanced AFM functionality, as the unions have not given any lead so far on how we should resist them.
But we should still be angry. Ticket office cuts leave stations so short that there is insufficient time to service machines. At Bank Station, with just four SAMFs for three ticket offices, the ticket office has been closing every day for servicing machines and IRFs have been filled out each time. This is just one example of how to put management under maximum pressure at local level.
The huge fight last year was not successful in defending staffing levels. The unions have gone quiet, with TSSA saying little and RMT's Executive voting down a set of proposals from a reps' meeting. But the last thing we should do is give up the fight, when management are planning future cutbacks. The dispute may be over but the war still goes on. We should look to start a new dispute with LU, fighting issues like enhanced AFM functionality and line working. Why make it easy for them to implement future cuts?
In the meantime, we need a campaign of guerrilla warfare against the impact of the staffing cuts.
