JOINT TSSA & RMT ULTIMATUM TO LUL

Here is a copy of the letter sent to Phil Hufton from both unions
It is clear both unions have run out of patience with the employer and have set out in detail what is required to resolve this dispute

Phil Hufton
Chief Operating Officer
London Underground Ltd
Floor 5, 15 Westferry Circus
London
E14 4HD
24th July 2014

Dear Phil

Our trade unions have been taking part in discussions with LU for several months at a Joint Working Party (JWP) of the LU Company Council. We have sought to engage with LU and have made many counter-proposals to both the principle and details of your fit for the future proposals.
After eight months of discussions not a single job has been restored, we still face 953 job cuts. Thousands of our members face the prospect of downgrading with consequent loss of substantive salary. Every ticket office is still to close by the end of 2015.
Our trade unions urge London Underground to reconsider the new staffing model you have proposed. Your proposals require you to displace up to 1200 skilled and trained staff who currently work, mainly in Central London stations, issuing tickets, servicing POMs and running control rooms – into roles that will involve applying new operational skills in a totally different environment of lone working on local stations. At the same time, you propose to displace hundreds of supervisors, who have these operational skills, into Central London to take on new roles running control rooms. In addition you will seek to displace every CSA who works on a local station, including many part-time staff who are unlikely to be able make long journeys to work.
Salary Guarantee
At ACAS on 5.5.14 you committed London Underground to offer a post to all staff, who are in the scope of fit for the future stations, with no loss of substantive pay. You further undertook to discuss with the trade unions how you could achieve this without unnecessary or unacceptable displacements. It was further stated by LU, at the JWP, that no member of staff would have to apply for a role in order to maintain their current salary.
At the JWP on 17.6.14 the TUs were presented with the principles by which LU intends to implement its proposed staffing model. In contrast to your previous commitment it was made clear to us that in order for our displaced members to retain their substantive salary they would have to pass assessments of their competence to perform new roles and they would have to accept whatever location LU proposes for them.
Specifically, the following conditions have been applied to the “salary guarantee”:
1. SSMFs will be required to pass a control room assessment in order to move into CSS1 positions
2. CSAMFs and SCRAs will be required to pass a station supervisor assessment in order to move into CSS2 positions
3. Members of stafff who do not pass an assessment that LU requires them to take in order to move in to a new grade will not keep their substantive salaries
4. LU will not agree to maintain the substantive salary of any member who declines a move to a role or location that is unsuitable to them

We consider this to be a very serious breach of commitments you gave to our respective trade unions and we now require you to make a clear, unconditional commitment that no member of staff will suffer a loss of substantive pay because of re-organisation at the company’s behest.
Unsustainable Job Cuts
It is clear from an initial look at the job figures proposed by LU for each station that many locations will be left without sufficient staff to safely and effectively run our stations. The Ladbroke Grove Cover Group will have its staffing halved. All local stations will be lone worked through both peaks. The claim that busier stations will get more staff has been exposed as entirely false as almost every station on our network is scheduled to lose positions. This even includes four out of six of the busiest gateway stations.
We undertook a station by station review of staffing and ticket office arrangements with you but having run through every station not a single position has been restored to your proposed model.
We now require you to state how many jobs you propose to cut, if this has changed from 953.
Ticket Offices
During the review of stations our trade unions have also identified serious problems with your proposal to close every ticket office. Many locations have POMs that will be at capacity with the ticket office closed and London Underground is relying on unproven technology to replace the ticket offices. In spite of our representations you have declined to even discuss contingency plans should any aspect of your strategy to replace ticket offices not unfold as you are hoping for. We believe this is irresponsible to our members and to London Underground’s passengers.
Please state what contingency plans London Underground has put in place should the closure of ticket offices cause problems that you have not foreseen.
Customer Service Manager Grading
RMT and TSSA object to the regarding of our members working in the grades of station supervisor 1 & 2 into management grades. Our respective trade unions have asked London Underground to confirm that the role that London Underground is terming Customer Service Manager will be an operational grade within the remit of the stations functional council.
We need Meaningful Negotiations
The trade Unions have raised these issues on many occasions at the JWP and at ACAS. London Underground has responded with vague suggestions of future discussions but is now implementing the proposals as they stand with the appointment of Area Managers, preparations for the assessment of Station Supervisors and confirmation of voluntary redundancies. The only significant commitment given to the trade unions, to maintain substantive salaries, has been undermined by subsequent statements that salaries will depend upon members moving and passing assessments.
The threat to future salaries is causing anxiety to many of our members and is undermining morale on the tube. Members are also worried about whether they are to be put in an impossible position performing a role to which they are not suited in understaffed stations with inadequate ticketing facilities.
Our respective trade unions are not prepared to allow London Underground to implement your flawed proposal to the cost of our members while going through the motions of a sham consultation with us.
We propose that your answers to the questions we have posed in this letter now form the basis of a serious process of negotiation. If London Underground is not prepared to engage with us, in good faith, on these issues then we have no alternative but to place the matter before our respective trade union executives to consider taking further industrial action.