On Wednesday19th December all 33 agency staff working on the Wembley Central group received an early Christmas present. They were informed by the company they work for, Trainspeople, that their contract with London Underground would be terminated on the 16th January and there would be no more work for them on stations after that. That’s just four weeks for people to find new jobs over the Christmas period. Some of these guys had worked on stations for over five years. Agency staff on the Wembley Central group first began to suspect something was up when a memo did the rounds announcing fifteen new station staff employed by LU would be joining the group in December. Agency staff are only entitled to know their shifts a week in advance and are not guaranteed a set amount of hours a week. The arrival of new LU staff would inevitably lead to fewer hours for them. After demanding answers to their concerns from both Trainspeople and LU management a short email arrived from Trainspeople management informing them that they would be out of work in four weeks.
This is just the latest in a long list of problems created by allowing employment agencies to operate on London Underground. Back in 2008 when LU took control of stations north of Queens Park RMT warned against the casualization of the job and in particular the use of agency workers. When RMT went into dispute with LU over these issues management assured us that agency staff were a stop gap and would only last for six months. The settlement of the dispute was as a result of promises from LU that the agencies would be gone within six months, a promise the company has clearly breached. Since 2008 RMT has insisted that all agency staff working on the Wembley Central group be brought in-house and that Trainspeople be kicked off LU. However, even when vacancies have needed filling on LU, agency staff have either been prevented from applying with LU claiming that this would breach anti-poaching rules. Or else agency staff who have applied for jobs have been rejected en mass in favour of people who have never done the job before.
On hearing the news on the 19th Trainspeople workers immediately contacted RMT and an emergency meeting was organised for Friday 21st. At the meeting which was attended by over forty RMT members, agency staff explained the situation and assistant general secretary Steve Hedley said he would contact Gerry Duffy and demand answers to our concerns, so far no adequate response has been received. RMT’s demands are simple. All station staff currently working for Trainspeople should be transferred over to LU without having to apply for the job. LU has announced that it plans a recruitment campaign in the new year to take on more CSAs. Who better for the job than those who already wear the uniform and do the job, some for over five years. While we await a response from London Underground RMT will be organising a company wide campaign to make sure our demands are met. The RMT’s position is clear, having reneged on the 2008 agreement LU are now morally obliged to employ all agency staff currently working north of Queens Park with immediate effect.