London Underground would like Station Supervisors to believe that because they are not cutting SS jobs (not now, anyway!), then they are not affected. In a new, special issue of 'RMT Platform', our newsletter for station and revenue staff, Station Supervisors who are RMT reps explain why it would be foolhardy and short-sighted for Supervisors to swallow this line.

Click '1 attachment' / file name to download it; click 'read more' to read the text.

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Two years ago, London Underground withdrew its plans to close 40 ticket offices and slash Station Supervisor jobs by introducing mobile Supervision. This decision was a direct result of the RMT and TSSA campaign, which won passengers’ support. Then Mayoral candidate Boris Johnson signed a petition not to close or reduce ticket office hours. Union members handed out leaflets. This, combined with the threat of strikes by RMT and TSSA, resulted in LU shelving these plans.

Two years on, LU wants to cut station staff numbers to the bare minimum. Your unions oppose this plan, because of its effect on safety and customer service, and because it imposes an unrealistic workload on remaining staff.
A leaked document showed that part of LU's plan is to cut minimum numbers for evacuations at busy central London stations. This is not because customer numbers or risks have reduced: it is a cynical attempt to ensure that their job cuts can be accommodated into the ‘new’ minimum number requirements for section 12 stations. A cut in minimum numbers will be unsafe and present an unreasonable risk to passengers and all staff, be they CSAs, Station Supervisors or drivers.
Station Supervisors know the difficulties we face in dealing with incidents with the existing full compliment of staff. With fewer staff, it will be much harder to:

• manage crowd control
• deal with service disruption
• walk passengers out of stalled trains in tunnels
• attend to passengers taken ill
• detrain
• assist vulnerable passengers
• and many more day-to-day tasks

We are already getting a glimpse of how these job cuts would affect us with vacancies left unfilled and duties uncovered.

These job cuts will affect surface stations too. These already have their own unique set of problems, with anti-social behaviour, ticket touts, slow response times from the BTP and barely enough staff to deal with operational incidents. Fewer staff at these stations will mean more lone working and an increased risk of assault and injury. Customer and staff safety will be threatened by the inevitable increase in anti-social and harmful behaviour. The cut in CSAs and ticket office opening hours will leave many Station Supervisors on the gateline and not in a place of safety from which they can call emergency services and deal with incidents.

Station Supervisors have already seen our workload increase over the last few years: more security checks, resolving Oyster issues, contractor and station upgrade issues, performance / scorecard issues and a swathe of new forms and paperwork. Closing ticket offices and cutting staff will mean:

• more time spent dealing with customer Oyster issues
• more customer complaints
• less assistance for the Supervisor with security and station checks
• more time spent on the gateline

This will mean we have less time to:

• inspect the station
• check equipment
• find, report and chase faults
• monitor the whole station
• keep paperwork up-to-date

After LU has cut SAMF and CSA jobs, we expect it to cut SS jobs too. We can expect the company to:

• try again to bring in mobile Supervision
• remove Engineering hours Supervision
• cut meal-break turns
• remove the second Supervisor at SS1 Stations, or make the second Supervisor SS2

LU plans to create larger station groups. If you are a reserve Supervisor, you will have to work at more stations, and travel further to and from work in your own time.
Management have even hinted that they may change the rule that reserve Supervisors are paid at the rate for the highest-graded station on the group.

Two years ago, a united approach from all grades successfully fought off attacks on ticket office and SS jobs. Now the attack is on SAMFs and CSAs and again Supervisors must play our part in defending these jobs. There is a direct impact on staff and customer safety and on the day-to-day job of the Station Supervisor.

If LU gets away with this attack on SAMF/CSA jobs and Supervisors take the attitude “it doesn’t affect me”, then who will help defend our jobs as Station Supervisors when LU tries to cut them?

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Victoria Line Station Supervisor
"One reason the company gives for not needing as many staff during the peak is that commuters need little help. At Victoria during peak hours, staff assist customers with Oyster, open gates for customers with NR paper tickets, assist the dozens of disabled passengers, and help tourists who contrary to LU's view do travel during peak hours. We have queues at both our ticket offices for most of the day. We have overcrowding and congestion most mornings and evenings. When we put station control in we need 7 staff for the Bostwick gates, staff on three gatelines and at platform level and various pinch points. With existing staffing levels we struggle and to cut any further would be insanity. I genuinely worry that serious overcrowding would result in injury to customers.
"We are under increasing pressure from management to keep the station open come what may and combined with fewer staff this would be a recipe for disaster. Every station has its own problems and reasons as to why they have the staff they do. We must fight these job cuts."

District Line Station Supervisor
“I am an SSMF at a group of mostly surface stations. We don’t have minimum numbers, and staffing levels are often just me and one other. On occasions I am alone working the window and supervising the station: this is far from ideal and can be a real struggle when a VIP turns up, let alone incidents occur.
"Reducing staffing further will have a massive effect. There are already times when I feel isolated with no real support. I know from years of experience that there is a direct relationship between staffing levels and vandalism and anti-social behaviour. With a decent number of staff on, there is less crime and less likelihood of an assault: the yobs that cause trouble always get cockier when they know you are on your own .The company tried this a couple of years ago when they wanted to close ticket offices and get rid of Supervisors. We stopped it then and we can win this time as well.”

Bakerloo line Station Supervisor:
“I work at a busy central London station, right in the West End, and we have commuters and tourists during the day and people out for a drink and a good night out later on. We already have a high assault rate and over the last five years we have seen our staffing levels cut to the bare minimum. Reducing SAMFs and CSAs even further will compromise safety for passengers and staff. Staff presence will be less visible. Customer service will not be as good and frustrated passengers will take it out on staff.
"Then there are operational problems and incidents. If an escalator becomes defective, we can just about cope by using staff to divert customers to alternative exit points. Assisting train operators will become harder and fewer staff will mean slower response times. There will more staff assaults, crime, station closures and one massive headache for me and other Station Supervisors.”

Central Line Station Supervisor:
"LU wants to cut one of our ticket offices to just an hour-and-a-half a day, and close it completely at weekends, despite this being one of the biggest and busiest stations on the system. This will cause constant grief, with disgruntled passengers wanting to know how to get their ticket enquiries and problems sorted.
"Worse, cutting staff on the station will endanger lives. We already have serious concerns about how long it takes to evacuate the station. It is obvious to anyone that with fewer staff, it will take even longer. We have upgrade work which will last for years to come, which means we need staff to direct passengers, check safety rules are being met, and assist the engineering staff.
"We have given leaflets to passengers explaining the cuts, and have received loads of support and pages full of signatures on our petition. They understand as we do that stations need more staff, not fewer."