RMT up front issue 28 - Drivers vote YES to defend London's Underground

Download the latest issue of RMT up front the newsletter for drivers on London Underground. This issue highlights LU's threats to our job, our culture of safety and our ability to provide a public service for London.

Main stories follow:

London’s underground is under attack Drivers: vote YES to defend the job!

Most Londoners are shocked at the severity of LUL's proposed cuts. So much for Boris’ Johnson’s promises (when seeking election) to keep ticket offices open!
When you look at the queues at ticket office windows the madness of this decision is obvious. If LU gets away with this, the staff still working on stations will need armour-plated uniforms as passengers queuing at broken automated ticket machines dish out abuse.
And what about the availability and competence of staff left to assist drivers when required? Have a flick through your Rule Book. On almost every page there is a procedure that requires station staff to assist the driver. LU claims there are no changes proposed to train operations. How can this possibly be? With no station staff to support train operations the consequential effect for drivers will be daily late running, short meal breaks and an increase in assaults.
How can an attack on staffing levels this severe not impact on the safe operation of the railway?
There will be the mess room ostriches who will want to bury their heads in the sand and claim that this dispute is nothing to do with them. But it does. RMT's ballot is about LU's threats to all our jobs - driverless trains, stations job cuts, the lot. They are all part of management's plan to strip the job of staff. This is the biggest attack that drivers have ever faced to our role, terms and conditions.
LU has been dreaming up changes to our procedures that do away with the need for station staff assistance: the detrainment dispute on the Bakerloo and Central Lines; the PED trials on the Jubilee and the proposed removal of daily OPO checks are just a few examples. Add in the temporary removal of the Framework Agreement during the Olympics and you don't need to be a rocket scientist to see where this is all leading!
There are plans for driverless trains and the selling off of the SSR as a separate entity, just like they did with the East London Line. The 'Virgin Sub Surface Railway', complete with cross-line working, would be music to LU's ears. These ideas are not pie in the sky; these are projects on the planning board. These plans will further dilute the role of the driver and fragment forever our collective bargaining powers.
Remember the bus drivers. Back in
'80s these fellow transport workers were on better money than LU drivers and had good working conditions. But they allowed themselves to be divided and fragmented to a level that their employers, the old LT Board, were able to slaughter their hard-fought-for terms, conditions, collective bargaining, pay and pensions.
Are we going to allow that to happen to us or are we going to stand up to LU management and say NO.
NO to attacks on the role of the driver. NO ticket office closures. NO attacks on staffing levels.
Vote YES for strike action. Vote YES for action short of strike action.
United we stand or divided we will fall. It's an old cliche but it has never been more true than on London Underground today.

DRIVERLESS TRAINS - FIGHT TO STOP THEM NOW

Boris Johnson and LU intend to introduce driverless trains, and have already started the preparations. RMT's current industrial
action ballot is about stopping driverless trains as well as about stations cuts.
RMT wrote to LU seeking
assurances that all new trains would have driver's cabs. The reply contained no such assurance. Instead, LU states that it: 'is currently starting to plan the next generation of rolling stock to replace the existing fleets ... We are looking closely at new technology and its ability to help us meet future requirements… we cannot rule anything in our out at this stage.'
Instead, management said that any new train would be operable in a variety of modes. So - with a driver for as long as they need one for technical or political reasons; but without one as soon as the company thinks it can manage without us. If LUL manages to impose its stations and ticket office cuts, it will feel powerful enough to dispense with drivers next.
We also know that LUL is testing technology that it requires for trains to operate without drivers eg. obstruction detection equipment. And that train builder Siemens is exhibiting a prototype driverless LU train.
We cannot allow LU to plan and commission a train without a drivers cab. If LU goes ahead and commissions new stock without cabs it will be too late for the unions to do anything about it.
The public are opposed to driverless trains – they want a driver on the front for safety reasons and for peace of mind.
We have to defend the drivers grade - for existing drivers and drivers of the future. Mike Brown’s statements that drivers, if they wish, can remain drivers for the rest of their careers is effectively a threat that the grade and the numbers of drivers will be run down and diminished until there are no drivers left.
RMT and ASLEF will soon be meeting to discuss a joint campaign to oppose driverless trains and defend our grade. In the meantime, vote YES to call a halt to preparations to dispense with drivers.