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RMT Platform April 2012

Here is the latest edition of RMTPlatform, articles include support for our comrades in the Tubelines dispute and LUL`s disgraceful renege on the casualisation dispute resolution on the Bakerloo line
Support Tube Lines
Workers’
Fight for
Pensions
and Passes
Tubelines workers, who maintain the Jubilee, Northern and Picadilly Lines, are taking action for two important issues: pensions and free travel. They will strike from 16:00hrs on Tuesday 24 April 2012 and return to work for shifts starting after 16:00hrs on Friday 27 April 2012. This follows a spectacular 81% yes vote for strike action and 90.5% for action short of strikes.

Pensions
For years, RMT has argued for all Tubelines workers to be part of the TfL pension scheme. At the moment the TfL pension is restricted to Tubelines staff who worked for LU before the privatisation of Tube maintenance and the creation of Tubelines.

RMT wants to end the two-tier workforce on Tubelines: it’s unjust for two workers doing the same job to have different pension rights. RMT also wants as many people as possible in the TfL pension. With more
members, the pension is stronger. This will benefit LU staff as well as
Tubelines staff.

Free passes
LU station staff enjoy the benefits of free travel on most of London’s transport. Tubelines workers only get free travel if they joined LU before privatisation. So, although the Tube could not run without their maintenance, most Tubelines workers have to pay the ever increasing fares to travel on it.

What can you do?
Talk to your Tubelines colleagues and express your support. Tubelines cover all lift and escalator maintenance and fault repairs for the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines plus the Emergency Response Unit for the entire combine. Therefore the Tubelines dispute will have an impact on how you manage your
station safely

Please see www.rmtlondoncalling.org.uk for ongoing updates.
Job Security for

Agency and LU Staff
LU have long intended to bring cheaper, more flexible agency workers onto LU and remove night turn Supervisors. In 2008, LU tried their luck when they took over from Silverlink on the north
of the Bakerloo Line. They hoped RMT wouldn’t notice that LU continued to employ the agency staff from the old Silverlink contract and was using security guards instead of SS’s overnight.

RMT did notice. We balloted all grades and were on the verge of taking strike action when LU promised to
remove the agency staff and meet the unions via a Joint Working Party to discuss our issues.
Four years on, the agency staff and security guards are still there. LU have said that their commitments of 2008 no longer apply in the new financial climate.

The RMT is just as concerned about this as we were when we were on the verge of strike action four years ago. The General Secretary has been informed. RMT activists will recruit agency staff and security guards. All railway workers belong in our union. We want to defend job security for existing LU staff and super-exploited agency staff and security guards.