Following the cancellation of last week's Director's meeting, union representatives will meet a Director to discuss filling vacancies and avoiding displacements on Wednesday 27 January at 11am.

Check back here for a report after the meeting.

The Director's meeting scheduled for this morning did not take place because the adverse weather conditions prevented the Director from attending.

The meeting will be rescheduled, and in the meantime, no staff will be forcibly moved away from their location.

UPDATE: This issue will be discussed at a meeting between union reps and a London Underground director on Wednesday 6 January.

London Underground is now considering forcibly moving some over-establishment staff away from their current locations, having refused a series of reasonable proposals from RMT (supported by TSSA) that would avoid this.

London Underground has decided that all additional station staff duties required by project work must be covered by the Special Requirements Team - even where there are existing project CSAs at that location. As a result, those staff face being forced to move away to a work location where they do not want to work, and will be replaced by people who are not nearly as familiar with the station.

The station which this will affect immediately is Bank/Monument, which has just completed phase 1 of its project work but still has several more phases to go, and will not be completed for several years. As ‘On The Move’ recently pointed out, the Bank/Monument complex is the largest underground railway station in Europe. There are already serious concerns about staffing levels, assaults and evacuation times on the station, and replacing staff who are familiar with the running of the station and well-versed in evacuation procedures can only make these problems worse.

RMT and TSSA reps took part in a lengthy discussion with management today about "over-establishment" CSAs.

We reiterated our opposition to any displacements, and our proposal that management should fill vacancies, confident that doing so would create a chain of vacancies that would see most if not all of the over-establishment staff find posts at stations and groups they want to work at.

London Underground has written to staff who are working above the establishment level on their station group, suggesting that they nominate substantive posts to move to. This letter has cause some alarm, with some staff interpreting it as a threat to displace them.

On 10 February, RMT (and TSSA) reps attended the latest in a series of meetings with a London Underground Director to discuss the 'problem' of over-establishment CSAs. LUL opened the meeting by stating that the company now intends to displace some CSAs, but by the end of the meeting, your union had persuaded them to delay this pending a further meeting.

The new issue of our 'RMT Platform' newsletter is out now. It responds to management's letter threatening to displace CSAs, provides 'know your rights' guides for the Special Requirements Team and for weekend part-timers, reports the latest news on the new Wood Lane station, and promotes next Monday's mass meeting and the Station & Revenue Grades meeting.

Click on the file name below to download and print it. You can also pick up colour printed copies from the regional office at Unity House. Please circulate it at work.

RMT press release, issued today

SOME 70 RMT station staff at a dozen stations at the north end of London Underground’s Metropolitan line are to strike for 24 hours from 05:30 tomorrow (Thursday) morning against the forced transfer of staff.

Members returned a 13-to-one majority for action after senior LUL management breached its own procedures to tell staff on permanent postings that they would have to move jobs – over-ruling a potential solution negotiated locally.

RMT London Underground members on the Rickmansworth Group have voted overwhelmingly to take strike action next Thursday (August 7, 2008) following a local management decree that a number of CSA members were alleged to be surplus to requirements and compulsorily transferred.

"These draconian measures were taken despite staff being assured by the general station manager that they were part and parcel of the normal reserve compliment and some staff actually moved home on the strength of it," said RMT general secretary Bob Crow today.

Vote YES for Strike Action - Ballot Papers will arrive from 23 July

• Five CSAs told they Will be Transferred on 10 Aug
• LUL Wait until RMT rep going on Leave to Issue Notices
• We Must Stand Together and Fight this Disgraceful Management Behaviour

We would all hope that our colleagues would support us if we were facing a forced transfer. You would not want to face getting a staff taxi at 3am to make a dead early at Paddington. Don’t let it happen to your fellow workers.

You can download a leaflet/poster by clicking on the file name below.

From Jared Wood, RMT Industrial Relations Rep, to all RMT members on Rickmansworth Group

• Eight CSAs told they Will be Transferred on 10 Aug
• LUL Wait until RMT rep on Leave to Issue Notices
• We Must Stand Together and Fight this Disgraceful Management Behaviour

London Underground seems to have developed a habit of sending staff to jobs that don't actually exist. There are groups of staff, such as CSAs at Rickmansworth, who were sent out of the training school to 'over establishment' posts. And then there are individuals, several of whom have been offered moves that they had nominated and signed acceptance for, only to be told that there is some kind of hitch and they can not have the job after all.

Three CSAs off our group were disgracefully displaced to Waterloo last week by Resourcing who stated that the CSAs were 'over establishment' at Charing Cross and due to the fact a dubious letter saying they may be moved had been signed when they all first joined the job. Management think that they have the right to just move staff on as they feel like it with no concern to the correct proceedure within Transfer and Promotions.

After Resourcing's latest fiasco with regards to the three CSAs being told that they are moving to Waterloo, we brought the matter before the stations and revenue functional council today.

From Jared Wood, RMT Industrial Relations Rep, to all RMT members on Rickmansworth Group

RMT has told LU we are in dispute over Transfer Threat

At the last level 2 meeting to discuss the threat to transfer 8 CSAs away from Rickmansworth group management claimed that all 8 had signed letters that told them they may be given a temporary position on their first group.

From Jared Wood, RMT Industrial Relations Rep, to all RMT members on Rickmansworth Group
8 CSA’s Remain Under Threat of Transfer
Management Pushed onto Back Foot but Fight Goes On

From Jared Wood, RMT Industrial Relations Rep, to all RMT members, Rickmansworth group.

Management Say 8 CSAs Must Leave Rickmansworth group
RMT Will Not Accept Compulsory Transfers

UPDATE ... We reported to you previously about LUL’s threat to displace Rickmansworth CSAs off their group. We are pleased to report that following strong representation from RMT, LUL has withdrawn these displacements in order to let the normal processes of promotion etc. resolve the ‘over-staffing’.

Rickmansworth group RMT rep Jared Wood reports ...

Management are trying to force seven CSAs to transfer off the Rickmansworth group reserve. LUL says the group is ‘over establishment’ for CSAs - but this is because of LUL’s mismanagement and has nothing to do with the individual members now being told to move.