From Bob Crow, RMT General Secretary - click on the file name below to download and print this.

NOTICE OF BALLOTS FOR STRIKE ACTION AND INDUSTRIAL ACTION SHORT OF A STRIKE

Dear Colleagues

RATES OF PAY & CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 2009, REDUNDANCIES, BREACHES OF AGREEMENTS – LUL

AND

RATES OF PAY & CONDITIONS OF SERVICE 2009, REDUNDANCIES – TFL

I am sure I don’t need to tell you that now is not a good time to be working on LUL and TfL. But as you can see RMT is determined to do something about it. Let’s start with LUL.

For some time now LUL have been breaching their own disciplinary and attendance procedures and have encouraged aggressive and punitive behaviour by local managers. For example, members are given 52 week warnings for a first attendance warning, maximum attendance warnings are given as standard, members are regularly subject to unreasonable pressure and have been refused representation for interviews while they are ill as well as being refused representation at other interviews where these could lead to disciplinary action.

Even worse, like a lot of other employers, it seems that LUL are trying to use the economic situation to their advantage to convince staff that there needs to be a large degree of cost cutting. This is why they are attempting to push through the Organisational Change policy which means compulsory redundancy proposals despite the agreement made between management and RMT in the PPP Code of Conduct. This Union will not accept any dilution to the agreement for these members nor will we accept compulsory redundancies for any other LUL employee.

And how do the company propose to reward staff for all this stress? Not very highly I’m afraid. LUL have not only failed to respond to our claim for a one-year pay deal and other improvements, but their multi-year offer of RPI plus 1% and flat RPI for the next 4 years is simply unacceptable.

On TfL the situation is largely the same. They too are seeking compulsory redundancies using the credit crunch as a front. But on this occasion another problem is the complete lack of meaningful consultations. TfL won’t even tell us at Company Council level which jobs are to be cut in their “moving feast” of over £2.4 billion worth of cuts within the next eighteen months. To make matters worse, it appears that they haven’t even factored in the loss of revenue due to income dropping or the lost money from the abandonment of the western congestion charge zone.

This is why the decision has been taken to ballot all London Underground and Transport for London Members for both strike action and action short of a strike. Both managements have been formally notified of our intentions and ballot papers will be dispatched direct to members homes on Friday 20th March. The closing date for the ballot is Wednesday 1st April 2009.

This is a slightly shorter balloting period than normal so all activists are asked to start holding workplace meetings and doing whatever necessary to get the biggest possible YES vote across both companies.

I will write again in due course.

Yours sincerely

Bob Crow
GENERAL SECRETARY