Dear Fellow RMT members,

Following on from the RMT National Executive's decision to call strike action for 48 hours on the 28/29/30th April and again for 72 hours on the 5/6/7/8th May, our negotiating group, led by myself, attended meetings and talks this week just gone.

LUL management have essentially spent the whole week at these talks in denial, not being Directors, and acting as though there isn't a dispute. They only wish to discuss the issues of dispute on management's terms and with small tweaks to their plans. They have completely failed to address our union's core concerns - job cuts; ticket office closures; pay cuts; inequality; serious worsening of conditions.

Once again LUL management failed to grasp a chance to halt this disaster for LUL stations and the staff who work on them. All they have suggested is another week's discussion on the same issues - with no offer to keep any ticket office open, no written offer of lifetime protection of earnings, and an insistence that 953 job reductions must be made.

LUL management have misrepresented the facts both to you and to Londoners:

• The station-by-station review of ticket offices that they promised us - and the travelling public - has not taken place.
• RMT has attended all the meetings and never misses an opportunity to speak for our members.
• RMT has made alternative proposals - senior management dismissed them as not 'credible' because they involve trimming their over-inflated salaries.

Remember that Fit For The Future - Stations only is the first wave of cuts of £4.2 billion. Since our last strike, management have not only backtracked on promises to review their ticket office closure plans, but have formally begun the commissioning process for driverless trains. They have also stated that our pensions are 'unaffordable' and that they intend to come for them next.

It is clear that LUL management's strings are being pulled by their political masters. But these political masters face elections over the next couple of years, and if we keep up the pressure, they will realise that closing ticket offices and cutting staff will lose them votes.

So now we have to stand firm and stand up for ourselves and our union. Our jobs, pensions, terms and conditions have been built up and fought for over decades. We will resist these attacks on our industry, the Underground and our jobs with every ounce of energy in our bodies.

We are strong and we are right. These managers in LUL will come and go. You, our union and our workforce are here for keeps .... We will not let them destroy it.

In solidarity,

John Leach
Regional Organiser LT Region