Your RMT Regional Organiser has sent the following letter to Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

Dear Mayor Johnson

I am writing to you on behalf of London Underground staff who were unable to attend work due to the heavy snowfall in early February. I have to alert you to the fact that London Underground has deducted pay or leave from them as a result.

On 9 February you told the 'Evening Standard' that you had "absolutely no intention of penalising anyone who failed to get to work due to last week's exceptional weather." On the same day, a TfL spokesperson told 'London Lite' that: "If staff are not able to provide a good reason for why they were not at work, they will be expected to take annual or unpaid leave for that day", clearly implying that staff who are able to provide a good reason should not be expected to take annual or unpaid leave.

Other employers within the TfL family, including TfL itself, have honoured your stated policy and granted staff paid special leave. But London Underground management are reneging on your assurance and insisting on deducting a day's leave or pay from staff who were genuinely unable to attend work. We have members who spent hours trying to get to work only to be forced to turn back; members unable to get to work because TfL cancelled the buses; members who were physically snowed in and unable to leave the road on which they live. And yet London Underground insists on treating them as though they had a day's holiday!

We have even had the situation where an employing manager granted paid special leave according to your stated policy, only to be over-ruled by a more senior manager and forced to deduct pay or leave instead.

I appeal to you to step in and remind London Underground management that they should act according to your stated policy on this matter and not deduct pay or leave from staff who genuinely could not attend work due to the exceptional adverse weather. Our members feel very strongly about this, and rightly believe that an injustice is being perpetrated. They are insisting that their union does not drop this issue but pursues it through all available avenues.

I would be more than willing to meet with you to discuss this situation, and can provide you with details of example cases if that would help.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours
Steve Hedley
Regional Organiser, RMT