London Underground Ltd

Transport union RMT said today that tube cleaners working for Initial and ISS will strike again over New Year in their fight for fair pay and workplace justice.

RMT cleaner members are instructed not to book on for any shifts that commence between:-

05:30 on Monday 31st December 2012 to 05:29 Wednesday 2nd January 2013.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said;

We note the correspondence from London Underground regarding the time allowance for detrainment of the S Stock. This union insists that all workers should have adequate time to carry out the tasks involved in their job.

We instruct the General Secretary to obtain reports as to progress on this issue, and on the issue of time for train preparation, through the Machinery of Negotiation and Consultation and to place these in front of us.

London Transport Regional Council, branches and representatives to be advised.

We note the correspondence from London Underground regarding its intention to deploy Circle and Hammersmith drivers to work on Metropolitan line track at Wembley Park sidings. The union totally rejects this, and will not accept any form of cross-line working.

Further, this adds to the evidence that LUL intends to use the introduction of the new ‘S’ stock to reduce maintenance frequencies and to deploy drivers, service control staff and others across more than one line. This threatens jobs, safety and service standards. We instruct the General Secretary to:

We note the correspondence from London Underground Ltd advising the launch of a new, annual, TfL-wide employee engagement survey called Viewpoint. We note that the results of the first of these is due in April 2013, and instruct the General Secretary to write to London Underground Ltd and TfL seeking their confirmation that no changes to our members’ conditions of employment that are not agreed with this union will be announced or imposed before the results are available.

We note the report from our Regional Organiser on this issue.

We remain concerned that the employer has reached agreement with just one union, and do not accept the explanation from the company that it did this because TSSA raised the issues with it first. We instruct the General Secretary to ensure that this is raised at the next Company Council meeting.

We note the resolution from our Neasden branch, and that the Metropolitan line upgrade is now complete. We place on record our recognition of the work of our Upgrades representatives on this over the last few years. All issues for negotiation and consultation should now be dealt with through the established machinery rather than the Upgrades set-up.

We instruct the General Secretary to:

1. write immediately to London Underground Ltd seeking the company’s confirmation that this will take place, to place the reply in front of us, and to monitor the situation.

We note the report from our Regional Organiser, and the continuing discussions at the APC Joint Working Party. We instruct the General Secretary to place LUL’s revised draft in front of us once received.

We further not that we still await the outcome of Brother Smith’s* grievance regarding the role of the PMA in his case and instruct the General Secretary to place this in front of us once received.

We instruct the General Secretary to obtain the report instructed by our previous decision as to whether London Underground’s use of PMAs meets ACAS standards.

Winter Weather

The RMT industrial position is that as a working practise, staff clearing snow is something we do. However, the TSSA have a different view that they do not believe it is a job that staff should carry out
However, the safety issues including work place risk assessments, protection and equipment still remain. We continue to raise these with LUL both locally and at council level, and have also issued a special bulletin and pro-forma that is separate from this update giving advice on protection

ELCPS (EMERGENCY LOCAL CONTROL PANELS)

A new edition of the London Calling Newsletter is attached. You can download it below.