RMT London Calling October Newsletter

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From John Reid RMT London Transport Region Regional Secretary
The London Olympics was a resounding success thanks to the role of different sections of workers who delivered the Games.London Underground staff worked around the clock to provide an excellent service for the million extra passengers a day. People from all over the world, able bodied and disabled, expressed their delight that stations were staffed by knowledgeable staff.

"Behind the scenes our engineers and service controllers kept the service running like clockwork while our drivers delivered passengers swiftly and safely to their destinations"

Behind the scenes our engineers and service controllers kept the service running like clockwork while our drivers delivered passengers swiftly and safely to their destinations. Rumours abound that many of these hard working staff will see their jobs go now the Olympics are over. Testing is imminent on driverless trains and where there was once well trained knowledgeable staff, there will be empty stations.

LU is also looking to replace engineers with electronic monitoring of track and trains. The company insists safety will be safeguarded yet already we are seeing incidents where changes to de-training procedures are allowing passengers to be put in danger.Our response to these threats must not be to get demoralised or resigned to cuts but to get organised and fight back. It will not be easy to resist LU’s plans.

After all, they want to divert money from public transport to make sure the bankers still get their million pound bonuses.But we will fight every job loss, every change in annual leave or job description. We will defend the position of every station being fully staffed by fully trained, Supervisors, SAMFs and CSAs. We will insist that drivers remain in the front of every train and that a full complement of Engineers, office staff, service control members remain in the job.

We will work with passengers and other rail unions to defend every job. We will be producing a charter on a strategy to defend jobs and services over the next few weeks, and will hold rallies across the Branches early in the New Year to discuss our fightback with members.

Please put your views and comments to me as soon as possible

From John Reid RMT London Calling Regional Secretary

Campaigners Demand Living Wage For All London's Transport Cleaners

RMT wants decent pay for all cleaners on London Underground, Overground, Docklands Light Railway and all rail services. Campaigners will demonstrate outside the GLA Headquarters on Wednesday
17th October at 0900 hours, to call for better pay and conditions for transport cleaners.

Rail and transport trade union RMT and supporters will demand that Mayor Boris Johnson increases the London living wage to £10 per hour, benefiting cleaners and other low-paid workers. Currently, cleaning companies on London Underground, DLR, London Overground and the various national rail companies pay wages varying between £6.09 per hour to £8.30 per hour.

An RMT spokesperson said, "In order to provide a decent living for themselves and their families, cleaners need at least £10 per hour. The cost of living, including rents, is much higher in London than elsewhere and wages should be weighted accordingly. We are also demanding that cleaners be granted free travel facilities within the Greater London area."

TUC Demo Against Austerity
On 20th October the RMT will be marching alongside many other trade unions, community groups and tens of thousands of ordinary people from every corner of the UK . This is because we believe that austerity is not working.

The RMT will be marching against wholesale job cuts, attacks on the welfare state and cuts in public services. The Government in the UK is not punishing the few in the banking and finance sectors who caused the global financial crisis, instead it is hitting hardest on the working classes and the poorest in society who had no part in causing the global financial crisis.

The RMT always puts workers rights at the centre of our campaigns and we share the vision of “A future that works” The March on 20th October aims to send the government a strong message that we don't want their flawed alternative economic plan. We want a future where workers earn decent wages not just earn
enough to exist. A future where fat cat’s bonuses are penalized and where tax evasion by big companies is totally eliminated.