This is the speech I made to RMT's public meeting against job cuts on 31 March ...

I work as a Station Supervisor at Bank.

London Underground wants to cut hundreds of SAMF and CSA jobs. At my station, these grades work very hard in difficult conditions.

They are the people who:

• evacuate the station in emergencies
• answer questions and give information all day
• sell tickets
• resolve Oyster and ticket problems
• service ticket machines
• carry out security checks of every part of the station, every hour
• reunite passengers with their lost property, lost friends and lost children
• assist drivers with various issues and incidents
• make PA announcements
• help disabled passengers
• update information boards
• are the first on the scene when there is an incident
• help passengers who are taken ill
• help during delays and disruption
• and lots lots more

I think that it is a disgrace that London Underground thinks that it can do without 800 fewer of these staff. Without them, London Underground will:

• be less safe
• be less secure
• provide less information
• provide a worse service
• have more passengers lost or stranded
• have more passengers distressed
• be less able to help vulnerable pssengers, such as children, elderly and disabled paasengers
• leave other Tube staff to deal with incidents alone
• risk potential catastrophe in the event of a fire, crash or bombing.

At a Company Council meeting, we asked London Underground why the company is doing this. The reply was three reasons:

1. The Jubilee line upgrade was delivered late
2. London Underground is short of money
3. There has been a change in ticket-buying behaviour

Let's look at these issues in turn.

1. The late delivery of the Jubilee upgrade is Tube Lines' fault. The PPP Arbiter says so.
   • By giving this as a reason, London Underground is admitting that it is making station staff pay with our jobs for the foul-ups of a private company.
   • Ten years ago, when the government was planning to impose the Public-Private Partnership (PPP), RMT said that it would be a disaster. We said that it would lead to job cuts in operational grades as well as privatisation of engineering grades. It is no pleasure to now say "We told you so".
2. There are other ways of saving money
   • LU pays out thousands and thousands of pounds in awards and settlements of Employment Tribunal claims because its managers continue to treat workers wrongly and/or unlawfully.
   • LU pays fees to contractors to do work that it would be cheaper to do itself with directly-employed workers.
   • LU pays enormous salaries and bonuses to its top managers and directors. If the company wants to save money by cutting jobs, it should start by looking at the best-paid, not the lowest paid. It could save as much by cutting a few dozen top managers and directors as by cutting 800 station staff.
3. London Underground has driven the changes in ticket-buying behaviour itself, through a deliberate policy of driving business away from the ticket office window, for example through the unfair £5 minimum Oyster top-up.
   • But there is a great demand for a human face, as people still need help and still have a lot of problems with Oyster.
   • I wouldn't mind so much if LU was closing ticket office because it was making Tube travel free - but it actually charges the highest fares in Europe, and is making it ever more difficult to pay them!
   • We are not about rejecting new technology or defending obsolete ways of working - but new technology should be an opportunity to improve public services not a pretext to cut them.

London Underground says that it has "too many" station staff, but we - and our passengers - know that this is a joke.

We reject the company's argument that it "has to" cut jobs because of the recession. There were recessions in the 1920s and 30s. On both occasions, the government gave extra grant money to London Underground, to build extensions and improve services - and to create jobs during a time of high unemployment. That's what the government, and London Underground, should be doing now.

We know that passengers want more staff, not fewer - a better serivde, not a worse service.

I think that we ahve a positive vission for an alternative London Underground:

• well-staffed stations
• cheap fares
• extensions and new lines
• improved services
• access for disabled people
• an Underground run under a workers' and passengers' plans, by the people who operate it and use it.

We must and we will fight these job cuts.

Earlier, I mentioned discussions at Company Council. Obviously, we won the argument with management hands down! But no matter what silver-tongued devils your union reps and officials are, we will not win this battle by argument alone.

Why? Because management don't care about what we care about.

They only listen to what we say inside the negotiating room if we are taking action outside the negotiating room.

BA cabin crew are striking to defend their jobs and conditions. Civil servants are fighting to defend their rights and jobs. London's college lecturers are taking action - as are our own RMT colleagues who work for Network Rail. We must join this wave of action.

Each time, though, these workers have seen anti-union laws used against them, and have been villified in disgusting attacks from press and politcians. That will happen to us too. But we have to fact that and we have to fight. We have to turn the tide against workers and service users being made to pay for the economic crisis.

We need a campaign of all grades and unions; involving a public, political protest; getting the public on our side. We need a serious strategy, not token protests; industrial action, both strikes and action short; and we need rank-and-file members in the driving seat not the back seat.

Two years ago, we stopped London Underground's last attempt to alughter ticket offices and jobs by running and effective campaign. Let's do that again.

* (Having said that, under my contract of employment I have to point out that the views I am about to express are my own, not those of the company, but I think you will work that out pretty soon!)