Tube Bosses Mostly Unresponsive In 'Every Job Matters' Talks

PROPOSED NEW ROLES FOR AREAS AND AREA MANAGERS

It should come as no surprise that Management totally rejected virtually every objection and concern that all the Trade Unions had to these proposed plans, which we continue to insist are illogical, ill thought out, and an operational and administrative nightmare facing us in the future if they go ahead.

However, Management were unable to see this at all and continued to insist that a splitting up of the current Groups will make the new role of the Area Manager much more accessible to front line staff, the other new grades of staff proposed will tie in much better with the new structure, and the current low approval rating of both DSMs and GSMs will rise accordingly as they will be much closer to the staff actually on the ground under the new structure. We all know that this will not actually happen and all they will actually be doing is putting in more complicated but increased tiers of managers who will continue to have to carry out all the administrative, performance, and disciplinary paperwork that they do at present. How this would mean more assistance for front-line staff still has not been answered at all by Management in their responses to us!!

Nowhere did Management also address the major concerns that we still have over how their proposed new structures would deal with the important issues of what existing staff come under what new Area, how such an exercise will be carried out fairly and equitably, how coverage of these Areas is meant to be allocated which will clearly affect existing Rostered and Reserve Arrangements, and how this whole structure will possibly be compatible and workable within the existing Nomination Process agreed within the current Transfer and Promotion Procedure.

All they will say is that all these concerns will be addressed as soon as the new procedure comes in, which clearly totally misses our concerns that all these important issues need to be addressed now and not sometime in the future. Talk about locking the stable-door after the horse has bolted!! You could not make it up, as another well-used cliche also says!!

18% Fewer Front line workers
Following detailed examination of Management's current proposals, what did become clear and which management have still been unable to refute, were the following facts :

167 FFMs have been decommissoned, but they will be replaced with only 150 new MFMs. Even though Management continue to insist that this will improve current ticketing arrangements for both customers and staff, they still fail to understand the basic point that these new machines can still only be used by one customer at a time and this will definitely lead to bigger queues and thus longer waiting times for existing customers. How our already over-stretched resources will be able to deal with these scenarios is not a matter for debate, nor will be the fact that this will lead to much more abuse and many more assaults on staff than is currently the case . Such concerns still go unanswered by Management.

Using Management's own figures, the actual numbers of front-line staff available actually goes down under their proposed new structures. Taking current numbers into account , there are 4445 staff who can be classified as front-line staff. Under the new proposals, this will fall to 3652 under the new proposals . This will be an actual reduction of 793 front-line staff, or a cut of some 18% on current numbers. Even if you add back on the 635 new CSM2 positions that are meant to be created but whose proposed roles and responsibilities will ensure that they cannot be counted as front-line staff , this still leaves us with at least 158 less front-line staff than before.

However, if you then also add on the 953 permanent positions that are due to go under these proposals, this makes a total of at 1111 current permanent positions that will be done away with.
These facts totally undermine the Company's position that this restructuring is led by the need to have more staff available and visible on our Stations, it is clearly nothing more than a cynical cost-cutting exercise to meet the arbitrary financial and political demands of TFL and the Government which is no way to run the vast public transport system that we are rightly proud of which services London and the South-East. We cannot let them get away with any more dismantleing of the Stations Network that has served Passengers and Visitors to London so well over the past decades.

Increase In Managers of 370%
There is some good news for staff and customers contained within Management's new structure. The levels and numbers of Managers will continue to rise!! Again, taking current figures into account, the current number of DSMs and GSMs comes to 228. However, under these new proposals, the numbers of CSM1s and AMs will rise to 433 ( An increase of roughly 90%) but when you also add in the new CSM2 Grade these numbers will rise to 1068 ( AN INCREASE OF NEARLY 370% !!). Good news indeed for some people who will apply and be successful for these new positions, but a totally unacceptable and shocking position for the vast majority of staff of lower grades who will find that they will not be able to apply for these new grades but which will also vastly impact on the numbers of front-line staff available to instigate the proposed new working structure on Stations. But again, Management seem to see nothing at all wrong in proposing and implementing this new structure but the RMT will continue to fight for what we strongly consider are unfair, inequitable, and ill-considered attacks on our member's current pay structure and working conditions and further attacks on our Pensions that we know are just around the corner.

RMT Rejects Voluntary Severance Extension
The RMT was the only Trade Union that totally rejected a proposed extension of the current Voluntary Severance proposals to also include GSMs who would now also want to leave. Whilst confirming our current opposition to the VS proposals currently on the table as both unfair and unfavourable, we further pointed out that adding GSMs into this package would not only cost a lot more money that was needed else where but also that the actual million of pounds that it would cost was disproportinate to what was being offered to a select number of other much lower-paid staff . The RMT's opposition to this proposal became even stronger when Management confirmed that any additional costs for including GSMs in the proposed VS Scheme would have to either come out of the existing allocation or would have to be added on to the £54 MILLION Annual Savings that we currently had to make. No firm decision has yet been made on this proposal, but again the RMT will continue to strongly argue that huge additional costs such as this are totally unacceptable to all the existing grades that we represent including, it must be said, some current GSMs who may benefit if such a proposal was accepted and agreed by all the other parties involved in these discussions.

Administration Workers Neglected
The RMT realises how badly our ADMIN members have been neglected over the years and to this end we were more than happy to agree a joint proposal with Management that Senior Reps will formally meet up with the Management Team who were recently running ADMIN Workshops across the Network to discuss the possible implications as to how these new proposals for FTF-STATIONS would affect them and their current working practises and salary scales. This meeting will take place shortly and the RMT Side will be arranging for the release of a couple of our ADMIN reps and activists to come along with us to ensure that your future prospects are strongly defended and even advanced. A report will then be discussed at the full meeting of the Sub-Group set up to oversee the current detailed discussions on the future changes facing all our members.

Detailed discussions on all the other new Grades and Salaries, plus the Station-by-Station Review, have now begun or will start next week and further detailed briefings on what is happening will be issued as soon as is practical and relevant.