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.

Management, however, refused to do this at this point, instead taking the view that the over-establishment staff must be dealt with first, before the company would allow vacancies to be filled! This seems to us to be an upside-down way of addressing the issue.

The good news is that progress was made, as the majority of over-establishment staff will either be moved to stations or groups that they have nominated, or will be allowed to remain where they currently work as there are vacancies for them to cover. We will meet management again next week to discuss the remaining 28 CSAs.

RMT has asked for further information to identify possible vacancies, for example a list of CSAs coming up towards retirement.

If you are one of those affected and want to know where you now stand, please e-mail Janine Booth.

A major disagreement came to light during the course of the meeting. Bank group has several over-establishment staff, because LUL sent them there to do the extra work created by the refurbishment project. Now that phase 1 of the project is over, the company has decided to use the Special Requirements Team instead of the existing project staff to cover the extra work for phase 2, which starts in February or March. RMT believes that this is a ridiculous decision. The existing project CSAs have been working at Bank for around two years, are familiar and competent at the largest and most complicated station on London Underground, and in most cases, want to continue working there. Instead, LUL proposes to replace them with SRT staff who are not familiar with Bank/Monument station and who will take a long time to gain that familiarity!

RMT is pursuing this issue through the 'machinery of negotiation' with London Underground.