The Rail, Maritime and
Transport union (RMT), Aslef, Transport Salaried Staffs Association
(TSSA) and Unite have been in dispute with London Underground over
pay being offered for the new service, due to start at weekends from
mid-September.
"Aslef members voted by over 97 per cent on a
turnout of more than 81pc to take strike action to protect their
work-life balance and working conditions. Money has never been the
key issue in this dispute - ensuring that change is negotiated rather
than imposed and introduced in a fair way has.
"Attempts to brand it as political and using
tired cliched attacks on trade unions are simply an effort to
distract attention from London Underground's inept handling of
negotiations.
"We will be ready to return to the
negotiating table on Friday morning to ensure that further action can
be avoided.
Our
action is in response to the impact of a £4.2bn cuts programme
imposed by the Government and Mayor of London. All four Unions are
united with members voting overwhelmingly for strike action,with 90%
plus yes votes and turnouts of over 50% (markedly better than the
Tory Governments24% share of the eligible voters in the General
Election).
The
strike is in opposition to LU demands that we accept additional night
working and working at weekends. They have made this a condition of
any pay rise in pay at all for the next two years. RMT members on
London Underground(LU) already work 7day/24 hour shift patterns. All
we are asking is for a fair increase in pay that recognises the
record number of passengers using the Tube and the massive
productivity gains we’ve already delivered. The two year pay
deal,would in fact be a below inflation deal, in real terms a pay
cut. The 0.75% pay offer would increase wages by between £225 per
year for the lowest paid and £450 per year for the highest paid,
(*1) compare
this to the £7,000 per year that has been accepted by MPs.
We
do not oppose night running on the Tube
but we insist that enough staff are
employed so that the burden of Fri/Sat nights working does not fall
on those already working unsociable hours. The proposed CSA roster
for South Kensington gives staff one long weekend off in every
27weeks.We have a separate but associated dispute over specific plans
for LU stations. LU is cutting 850 jobs leaving many stations
dangerously under-staffed. LU is lying to the public by claiming
there will be more staff in ticket halls to help passengers. This is
plainly untrue. Ticket office staff are not coming out from behind
glass. The jobs in ticket offices have been cut and passenger...
Our
members will be expected to work anywhere on a line with just 24
hours notice of their duties. (*2) This
will make it impossible to plan a life outside of work.
At a day’s notice we could be told our duty has moved and that we
will need to leave for work at 2am or 3am in the morning to catch a
staff taxi.None of the huge increase in travelling time will be in
paidtime. LU wants to be able to take staff from one under-staffed
station to plug gaps in another rather than employ enough …
I
have added nothing to this RMT missive on their website. There are
just two observations.
*1 Why
has the RMT Union politicised this works dispute by deliberately
conflicting it to MPs pay?
*2 Since
when has any body the right to demand a style of life which only a
mythical god or the head of a family can arrange?
With
the above we must also take the statement made on BBC 5 Morning Live
that working different duties would impact with a 5 year
deterioration in the workers life expectancy?
alcohol
per week?
If
we were to carry the RMT spokespersons logic through to a conclusion,
and accept that the major problem they have is the welfare of their
membership, can we expect that ALL RMT members would have to stop
smoking immediately and ALL members would be restricted to 21 units
of alcohol
per week?
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