RMT continues to object to London Underground's refusal to fill vacancies. The company's insistence on leaving posts vacant means that many staff are blocked from moving to where they would prefer to work or even from attaining a promotion that they have worked hard and qualified for. And it means that other staff on the station with the vacancy have a higher workload and less support.

We have obtained the following information from management regarding the current state of play:

NUMBERS OF 'OVER-ESTABLISHMENT' STAFF
SS1 - 11
SS core - 11
SAMF - 18
CSA - 68

NUMBER OF VACANCIES
151

NUMBER OF ACTUAL STAFF
5677

VACANCIES BY GRADE
SS1 - 7
SS core - 41
SAMF - 47
CSA - 56

VACANCIES WITH PROMOTEES AT THE TOP OF THE WAITING LIST
SS1 - 2
SS core - 11
SAMF - 21

You will note that these statistics do not include Stations Assistants (Control Room), and neither do they include the locations of the vacancies, as we requested. RMT reminded London Underground of their legal obligation to provide trade unions with sufficient information for us to take part in consultation and negotiations in a meaningful way.

The figures reveal a scandalous situation:

• 34 people being deliberately denied a promotion to a vacant post that they are qualified for;
• extra staff at some locations while other posts are held vacant;
• grades, such as SAMF, in which there are many more vacancies than over-establishment staff, and for which it must therefore be straightforward to fill the jobs;
• stations systematically understaffed, leading to poor customer service and safety risks.

The solution is simple: fill the vacancies!. At the Strategy & Development Forum today, RMT proposed just this, but management refused. They offered two reasons:

1. lots of over-establishment staff have not nominated a location to work at;
2. "the current economic climate".

On the first of these, RMT pointed out that many over-establishment staff do not know that they are over-establishment. We therefore proposed that London Underground write to them pointing this out, advising them to nominate and telling them where there are vacancies in their grade. We also insisted that unlike the previous occasion on which the company agreed to write such a letter, it should not include a threat to displace them!

On the second reason, we feel that "the current economic climate" is being used as an excuse for every unfair management policy at the moment! In the case of this policy, as of others, it simply does not stand up to logical scrutiny. Where posts are vacant, the company is having to pay overtime to staff to work the uncovered duties, which costs more money than filling the posts and therefore reducing the number of over-establishment staff! As the "economic climate" argument does not hold water, we can not help but suspect another agenda - namely, that management are holding posts vacant in order to justify scrapping them in future.

Management also contend that filling the vacancies would not lead to a reduction in over-establishment numbers. However, RMT strongly suspects that it would. If a member of staff moves into a vacancy, then their previous post becomes vacant, then that is filled by someone else, then their vacancy is filled by someone else, and so on. Eventually, by a knock-on effect, the over-establishment staff will move into vacancies. And along the way, a lot of people will move into posts where they will be happier than they are now!

RMT proposed that a representative from each of RMT and TSSA would meet with managers from Resourcing and Employee Relations, and look at every vacancy, who would fill it, and who would fill the consequent vacancies. Management agreed. We are confident that this process will show that filling vacancies will be of great benefit.

The "over-establishment problem" was created by London Underground and its private-sector partners, yet staff are being made to pay the price. RMT's persistence over this issue has prevented the company from carrying out its threat to displace staff en masse. We will continue to pursue this issue until we get vacancies filled and justice for our members.