RMT functional and safety council reps attended ACAS last week to take part in talks with London Underground management about the company's planned cuts to jobs.

This stage of the talks was a 'review' convened by ACAS. The purpose was to examine LU's job-cutting policy in detail, which would help inform further talks aimed at reaching a settlement. Discussions looked in particular at business needs schematics, ticketing policy, and safety issues. This review revealed information that exposed just how flawed and money-driven LU's plans are. The next stage will be negotiations on the dispute itself, which we expect to begin within a week.

LU could and should have given us this information six months ago. But we can now tell you more about the company's ticketing strategy and its freezing of vacancies, and further information about other areas of discussion will be posted soon.

In an official RMT circular issued during the talks last week, Bob Crow reported on safety discussions: "Your representatives are now at ACAS involved in a detailed review and examination of several example stations and are currently completing a detailed validation process. The conclusion of this process will be highlighted to management at the ACAS level of the disputes resolution machinery when talks are reconvened following the next strike action scheduled for 2nd and 3rd November 2010. ... I can advise that we have made some progress in our talks at ACAS in terms of job cut numbers and the health and safety process."

Armed with both strong arguments and solid industrial action, we believe we can press ahead and force LU to withdraw its job cuts. But neither the argument nor the action will work alone: we need to both talk and walk!