London Underground Ltd

London Underground inherited a contract with the Trainpeople agency from Silverlink in 2007. In breach of agreements with unions, for five years LU continued to use agency staff in LU uniform while Trainpeople paid them as little as £6.75 per hour. Trainpeople staff joined RMT and organised for equal rights with permanent staff as stipulated in the 2010 Agency Worker Regulations. Then, without warning, LU terminated its contract with the Trainpeople Agency a year early!

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33 RMT Members Sacked by Trainpeople Agency
On the 19th December 2012, all 33 Trainpeople agency staff working on the Wembley Central group received an early Christmas present. Trainpeople informed them that their contract with London Underground would be terminated on the 16th January, with no further work on the stations after that. This allowed them only four weeks to find new jobs over Christmas, some had worked on stations for over five years.

We note the correspondence from TfL, and instruct the General Secretary to place this matter back in front of us once it has been discussed at TfL Company Council and/or when the legal advice we sought is received.

London Transport Regional Council and TfL no.1 branch to be advised.

We note the report from our Regional Organiser, attaching a report from our LU Trains Upgrades representatives.

We and our LU trains representatives are concerned that London Underground Ltd may be using the Upgrades set-up to bypass the established Machinery of Negotiation and Consultation. It is not acceptable to us for the employer to discuss all matters concerning the upgrades of three lines with one Upgrades rep to the exclusion of local representatives.

We note that further discussions have taken place to arrange synchronisation with ASLEF for the Bakerloo line action. We therefore instruct the General Secretary to cancel our industrial action on the Bakerloo line only starting at 00:01 on Thursday 10 January and to begin the action instead at 00:01 on Tuesday 15 January. The industrial action remains the same as in our previous instruction and is to run until further notice; and the timing of the industrial action on the Central line remains unchanged.

Central Lines trains were non stopping at Oxford Circus Station this Monday as plaster fell from the ceiling. Fortunately nobody was hurt but disruption lasted over an hour during the morning peak.

RMT's general Secretary Bob Crow said "RMT has warned repeatedly about the impact of maintenance cuts and specifically the widening of schedules from a 14-day to a 28-day cycle."

This comes on the same day as a Central Line train was taken out of service having over run a platform due to a suspected brake fault.

"I'm not begging, I just want to work"

On December 19, 2012, all 33 Trainpeople agency staff working from Wembley Central were informed that that their contract with London Underground would be terminated on January 16, 2013 and that their applications for permanent positions would not be considered despite having worked in these roles for up to five years.

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Bakerloo and Central line drivers to take action over “detrainment” carriage checking

Following a substantial ballot in favour of taking industrial action over London Underground’s removal of detrainment staff, leaving Bakerloo and Central Line drivers to take trains into depots and sidings without staff on hand physically checking that all passengers are off the train, tube union RMT has agreed to call the following industrial action short of a strike:-