RMT secures 4 year pay rise for London Underground members

Dear colleague

RATES OF PAY & CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 2019 – LONDON UNDERGROUND

You will know that your union had rejected two “full and final” offers on pay from London Underground, to cover the years commencing on 1st April on 2019-2022. These offers were rejected as your representatives expressed the anger and concern of you and your colleagues as the offers did nothing to address issues of fatigue and excessive working hours or the spiralling cost of living.

Therefore, as you will know, your National Executive Committee commenced a ballot for strike action of all RMT members at London Underground and this was due to close on 31st March 2020.

I then received further correspondence from London Underground setting out a new and revised offer, which is as follows:

Year One: RPI +0.2% (2.7%)
Year Two: RPI +0.2%
Year Three: RPI +0.2% (minimum increase 1%)
Year Four: RPI +0.2% (minimum increase 2%)

The anniversary for each is 1st April and the RPI figure will be based on the February rate for each respective year.

The company further stated that it can “confirm we share the aspiration of reviewing the hours that our people work, and are keen to work with you in the future to find ways to achieve this that provide benefits to both our people and the business.”

The above offer was discussed by your senior representatives and the overwhelming majority stated they wished to accept the offer immediately, a view shared by your Regional Organiser who also recommended immediate acceptance.”

Your NEC has endorsed this recommendation and accepted the four-year deal on behalf of RMT membership at LUL. The NEC has also issued the following statement in this matter:

“That we note the discussion that took place with our LUL Level 2 and Tier 2 reps this morning.
London Underground has explicitly used the Coronavirus crisis to present their unsatisfactory pay offer as an ultimatum. The offer does not make progress on the key issue of working hours, shifts and fatigue.
RMT members and reps have spent many months in negotiation with LUL seeking to secure a shorter contractual week and the need to address the long-term health impacts of shift work has not gone away.
However, at this time RMT members on LUL are rightly focused on ensuring our safety while we maintain a service on the Tube. The 4-year offer does give our members security from both inflation and deflation over the next three years and therefore protects our real pay.
We also note that LUL has stated they remain committed to addressing our concerns over working hours and RMT will return to this issue as soon as we are in a position to do so.

The General Secretary is now instructed to inform LUL that we will accept the four-year pay offer that offers RPI +0.2% for each year from 2019-2023 with a guarantee of a minimum increase of 1% for 2021/22 and 2% for 2022/3.

We are in no doubt that once we come out the other side of the coronavirus crisis employers and government will seek to recover the costs of dealing with this crisis from the working class. In this situation we will, at least, have protected our members from attacks on pay. We will, of course, resist all other attacks on jobs or conditions.
RMT thanks members for their steadfast support of our fight to address working hours during the recent negotiations. We will now continue to strive to ensure our members, and those with whom we live, are not placed at unnecessary risk as we provide a Tube service for essential users in London.”

I have informed London Underground of your union’s acceptance and also asked for clarification on when the pay rise will be implemented and on the details of back monies owed in terms of the first year of the deal, which was due on 1st April 2019.

I would like to add my thanks to all RMT members at London Underground for not only showing support for your union during this process on pay negotiations but also for all you are doing to keep essential Tube services running during these extremely concerning times.

Yours sincerely

Mick Cash
General Secretary