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.

At a meeting this morning that continued from last Friday's deliberations, we reiterated our proposals that the issue could be addressed by

• filling vacancies under the transfer and promotion procedure, which we believe will lead to a reduction in the number of staff who are over-establishment - management refused this, taking a (we believe, irrational) stance that they will not fill vacancies until the over-establishment staff have been 'dealt with';
• allowing union reps more time to approach staff and find out why they have not nominated and/or whether they would be willing to work at certain locations - again, management refused;
• looking at the list of CSAs approaching retirement, so that we can identify posts which will soon be vacant - management, having previously agreed to this, today refused;
• overturning management’s decision that the SRT will cover all additional work required by projects, even where there are existing project CSAs on site, specifically at Bank/Monument - this would enable these over-establishment staff to remain where they are.

We have therefore registered with management that we do not agree with them on these four issues, and on their plan to forcibly move over-establishment staff to locations which they have not expressed a desire to work at.

We have asked management to advise as to when these issues will be discussed at the appropriate level of the machinery of negotiation and consultation.

We agreed at the end of this morning’s meeting that the movements agreed between management and staff sides would go ahead, but that no movements about which we have failed to agree – ie. of the remaining over-establishment staff - will go ahead until the machinery of negotiation is exhausted.