Click '1 attachment' / file name to download the new issue of our 'RMT London Calling' newsletter. It features the Alstom pay dispute, the LU overtime ban, messages of support for our fight against job cuts, Royal Mail - not for sale, and more!
Vince Cable has announced that the ConDem government is to sell off the Post Office - despite the fact that Post Office workers, and the big majority of the public oppose this.
Janine Booth, RMT Regional Secretary, said: “When this disastrous policy was floated by the last government a couple of years ago, our Regional Council unanimously passed a resolution condemning it. We know from the experience of PPP, and from mainline rail privatisation, that selling off public services only benefits private-sector fat cats. Working conditions, job security and the service itself always suffer.
Arsenal, Liverpool Street, Lambeth North, Cannon Street, Charing Cross, Regent's Park ... These are all stations which have been forced to close because RMT and TSSA members are refusing to do overtime in protest at London Underground's proposed job cuts.
An RMT member in Service Control writes ...
Firstly, when station staff are taken away, their responsibilities have to go somewhere and a lot of them are being heaped onto controllers. We are being given increasing responsibility for operational procedures such as wrong direction movements (carried out over secure radio) and frankly I think we already carry a huge responsibility (and therefore concurrent potential for cock-up) and need more like we need holes in our heads.
An RMT member at Alstom writes ...
Alstom is a multinational engineering company that was invited to supply and then maintain trains on the London Underground Northern and Jubilee Lines under that last Tory government. They were the first private company in the underground and may be the last one. Conditions in Alstom have declined massively in the past year, with the employer using severe disciplinary methods against staff for increasingly minor offences.
I would like to thank members for standing firm during the recent strike action taken with our sister union TSSA to fight the 800 job cuts on LUL. The effectiveness of the action demonstrated your clear determination that management should ditch their unnecessary and dangerous plans to cut safe staffing levels, and start talking seriously about a safe and secure future for the tube network. The strike action held over Monday and Tuesday was very solid and had a devastating effect on their ability to run a service. From feedback we understand approximately 2/3 of trains were cancelled.
Bob Crow, General Secretary
Read more below ...
Please click on the link to download the September edition of the Bakerloo News. Main article follows:
Round one to RMT and TSSA!
The magnificent strike supported by Bakerloo RMT and TSSA members alike showed London Underground that we mean business in our defence of jobs and safety. The Bakerloo Branch would also like to salute our friends and colleagues in ASLEF, who respected our picket lines and showed that they too, understand the importance of this dispute for the future of the Underground.
Click '1 attachment'/ file name to download the post-strike issue of our newsletter, featuring 'the strike in pictures'. Read the lead article below.
RMT salutes the solid support of members for the joint action with sister union TSSA on Monday evening and Tuesday. Respect also to those members of ASLEF who respected picket lines and joined the action. Together, we have successfully turned the spotlight on cuts to safe staffing levels and ratcheted up the pressure on both London Underground management and Boris Johnson to drop their job-cutting plans.
RMT motion at TUC calls for co-ordinated strike action, national demonstration and link up with community groups in fight against the cuts
TRANSPORT UNION RMT has tabled a motion for the TUC Congress in Manchester next week which sets out a blueprint for a co-ordinated trade union and community fight back against the cuts programme and the “class warfare” of the ConDem Government.
SUPER SOLIDARITY CRIPPLES LUL.
ASLEF members join the RMT and TSSA action to say: STOP THE JOB CUTS KEEP THE RAILWAY SAFE NO MORE ATTACKS ON TERMS AND CONDITIONS
Click on the attachment to download a copy of Finsbury Park's Strike Update leaflet.