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Just days before a major strike ballot is due to close, Tube unions have stoked the fires accusing London Underground of "blatant intimidation".
The Rail Maritime and Transport Union is currently balloting 10,000 Tube workers for industrial action over the axing of 800 ticket staff and 140 offices - the poll closes August 11. Today the Transport Salaried Staffs Association said 1,000 members will also vote over the cuts - they said booking clerks and managers will vote in the next few weeks, warning that any strikes would start in early September, as schools reopened after the summer holidays. Their ballot ends week after the RMT. A third 24 hour strike by the RMT on the Docklands Light Rail system is scheduled for August 6. Industry insiders are convinced that the union is determined to press ahead with the network wide strike, a broadside to the coalition government seeks to cut costs.
In the latest development the RMT responded to a letter by Gerry Duffy, LU’s Director of Employee Relations which apparently demands:
"...that the current democratic votes of members be halted or he will tear up negotiated agreements and procedures – paving the way for a jobs massacre across the tube that would impact on all staff and all unions".
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:
"It is clear to us that with billions being stripped out of the TfL budget to pay off the failed PPP experiment, and to bail out the central Government deficit, that the senior tube management have seized the opportunity to threaten existing agreements which would allow them to unleash a jobs and safety massacre right across London Underground. No job would be safe.
This is a cynical attempt to bully tube staff who are involved in a democratic vote over the important issue of safety-critical jobs and the drive towards unstaffed stations. Threatening and intimidating workers who are rightly concerned about staff and passenger safety is outrageous.
We are calling on London Underground to lift this threat immediately. We are now in the ridiculous position where TfL management are openly admitting that the tube is facing massive cuts that will condemn passengers to travel on ancient, under-staffed and unsafe infrastructure while at the same time they are attacking their own workforce who are prepared to stand up and do something about it.
This attack on the workforce is an attack on safety and it must stop right now." Transport for London have in turn attacked what they call the "scare tactics" of the union and stressed that the changes to staffing and ticketing will have a minimal impact. LU's Howard Collins said:
"What we are seeking to do is deploy staff more visibly in stations where they can more easily assist passengers.
We are committed to delivering these changes with no compulsory redundancies." TSSA General secretary Gerry Doherty said the cuts would hit overground stations in the suburbs, harder than those in the inner city.
"The irony of all this for Boris is he is having to hit the Tory heartlands the hardest to make cuts that are being imposed on him by George Osborne at the Treasury We need fully staffed stations to protect the public, particularly women and the elderly, who feel very vulnerable when travelling late at night."
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