Service control

A new manager comes in, wants to make a name for himself, clamps down on overtime, interferes with established ways of ensuring coverage, and guess what happens?

Yup. Not enough control staff to run the subsurface and Piccadilly lines last night. No problems for our intrepid new guvnor: the control room equipment can run itself! No, it can't. Still no problem: the staff can work through their meal reliefs. Er, no they can't.

Result: job up wall.

Service controllers on the Waterloo and City Line on London Underground (LU) have been fighting for regrading to reflect the responsible nature of their work. They struck from 28-30 September. One of the activists spoke to Tubeworker.

Waterloo and City line service controllers will strike for 48 hours next week in their fight to have their job uprated.

W&C controllers are paid less than every other service controller on the job - they have a grade all to themselves so that the company can pay them five grand less than others. They are even paid less than some signal operators.

This is despite the fact that their job includes signal operations, line control and line information, and despite new equipment being installed in their control room.

For nearly two years, Waterloo & City line service control staff have been refusing overtime in pursuit of their entirely justified claim for higher pay to reflect the complexity of their work. Nothing doing. Management didn't care.

So they stepped it up. Balloted for strike action. Got a 100% Yes vote. Put on a 48-hour strike.

And guess what? Management came running to ACAS and have now agreed a review which should lead to a pay enhancement.

The lesson is obvious: if we want to win, we must show willing to take action.

Neasden signals flashed like Xmas lights for eight months, until an RMT industrial action threat forced LU and Thales to respond.

But new software didn't fix it. Signallers are still clearing one route only for another signal to turn to danger - potentially causing drivers to SPAD.

Thales only randomly tests some routes . LU should force Thales to test every route. Safety is as stake! We’ll need to carry out our threatened strike to sort this for good! 

Since Thales installed new software last August, there have been signalling irregularities at Neasden Met depot. You clear one road, and the system clears another one instead!

This has meant that service control can not use four of the depot roads for long routes, and have to set routes bit by bit instead. It's a pain in the rear, but it is also potentially dangerous.

Service control workers have won some important demands for job security. Management intended to use the opening of the new Hammersmith Service Control Centre in 2015 as a pretext to keep the staff they wanted and ditch those they did not, and to reshape the service control function in a way that undermines effective trade unionism. RMT demanded – and won - protection of career paths, lifetime protection of earnings and union agreement to staff movements. Service control staff will now keep their rate of pay (and pension) permanently even if they are displaced into a lower grade.

LU RMT Service Control workers are urging ‘Vote Yes!’ in the current ballot for strike action.

The issues in dispute include the new Hammersmith Service Control Centre, which will cut up to 200 jobs, without guaranteed protected earnings. Tubeworker is pleased we’re taking action although the new centre is years away. Better to fight while we can still win!

Another issue is that LU have not stuck to a 2005 agreement to pay SO3 salary to Reserve Service Operators. The company cannot pick and choose whether to pay us according to agreements!

Trains are trains, and service control is service control, you'd think. But LUL management have other ideas, and are planning to train DMTs to operate service control kit, not even pausing to address union objections.

Could this be management's latest ruse to cut jobs by having other grades available to cover uncovered duties and vacant posts? Or maybe they are preparing in advance for future industrial action in service control by creating a troop of ready-trained scabs.