The roster consultation has begun. You will be called to a meeting by your GSM, then have a period of time to consult members, and the meeting will reconvene after three weeks for you to give feedback.

The weeks in which these meetings should take place are as follows:
The first date is the week when your initial meeting with the GSM takes place; the second date is the week when the debrief meeting with the GSM takes place.

• Victoria 28/06/10 - 19/07/10
• Bakerloo 28/06/10 - 19/07/10
• Central 05/07/10 - 26/07/10
• Jubilee 12/07/10 - 02/08/10
• Circle and Hammersmith & City 19/07/10 - 09/08/10
• Metropolitan 26/07/10 - 16/08/10
• Piccadilly 26/07/10 - 16/08/10
• Northern 02/08/10 - 23/08/10
• District 02/08/10 - 23/08/10

You will need several days to consult members thoroughly. Your GSM must release you from work to do this. If you do not feel that the release you have been given is long enough, ask for more – and if you are refused, speak to a functional rep.

This is part of London Underground’s process of cutting around 800 station jobs. It is also an opportunity for us to show staff exactly how these proposed job cuts will affect them.

Remember: Your union completely opposes these job cuts. We are in dispute with the company about them. You should carry out this roster consultation as a way of informing your members about the devastating effect of the cuts, and involving them in developing our opposition to them.

Please keep in close contact with your union’s Stations & Revenue (functional) Council reps. We are each taking responsibility for various lines. Contact details are as follows:

• Janine Booth 07748 760261 – Central & Metropolitan
• Malcolm Taylor 07748 933241 – Bakerloo & District
• Neil Cochrane 07739 869867 – Piccadilly
• Mac McKenna 07801 071363 – H&C, Jubilee
• John Kelly 07740 065367 – Victoria
• Mick Crossey 07931 570521 - Northern

THE ROSTER CONSULTATION PROCESS

1. Get your documents

There are three documents for each station:

• The business needs schematic (BNS) - a chart which shows what work management think should be done
• The roster
• The duty schematic, showing what work each duty is doing at what time of day

Insist that your GSM gives you, for every station on the group, all three of these documents – both the proposed ones and the existing ones, so that you can compare them.

2. Look at the BNS – current and proposed

The BNS is a chart which shows what work management think should be done. (It is a colour document, so make sure you get colour copies.) Management are ‘justifying’ their job cuts by saying that less work needs to be done.

Look at the current and proposed BNS and you will be able to work out what it being cut. This may include, for example:

• reduced ticket office opening hours
• fewer ticket office windows open at particular times of day
• specific ticket office duties other than window time being cut – eg. POM servicing, collections
• fewer staff on the gateline at particular times of day
• platforms not staffed at times of day that they are currently staffed
• other station duties removed

Write down a list of the changes that you can see.

Make a note of the problems that you think these may cause, bearing in mind the conditions at your station, for example:

• maybe the ticket office may open up later in the morning, even though you know that customers use your ticket office at this time of day
• maybe during the morning peak, you have two people on the gateline at present, but management want to cut it to one – but you know that even now, the two staff are run off their feet

Make a note of your concerns.

3. Look at the duty schematic – current and proposed

The duty schematic tells you which duties are doing what work. Look out for things like:

• Supervisors working on the barrier or platform. Who is supervising the station?! And when the Supervisor is called away to eg. book on contractors, who will do the work?
• SAMFs doing CSA duties

Make a note of your concerns.

4. Look at the roster – current and proposed

Look at the rosters, one grade at a time. Look out for things like:

• how many jobs are going
• how many weekends staff will be working compared with the current roster
• early starts and late finishes
• split rest periods
• other anti-social aspects to the roster
• anything that breaks the Framework Agreement eg. less than 12 hours rest between duties

Make a note of your concerns.

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You then need to take this information round to all the staff on your group. Make sure that you organise your time so that you visit every station and spend enough time there to speak with all staff.

Use the duty sheet and a staff list and/or union membership list to check that you can speak to everyone.

Give them copies of the rosters and schematics. Talk them through the concerns that you have already noted. They will probably have comments – add these to your notes.

They may also have other concerns that you had not noticed. Write these down too.

Answer staff’s questions if you can. If you are not sure of the answer, ask a functional rep.

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At the end of this process, you will have written down lots of objections to the new schematic/roster. Write these up as a list, and submit it as an item for an ad hoc level one meeting, at which it will be discussed as a collective grievance. Send a copy to your union’s functional council reps.

You will find that your objections are rooted not in this or that adjustment to duty times, but in the staffing cuts themselves.

You can not agree to any cuts in staffing levels on your group’s stations. This is being discussed at a higher level in the Machinery of Negotiation and Consultation, and your union is in dispute with the company about its plan to cut jobs.

So, do NOT submit any alternative roster for the reduced levels of staffing.

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Your functional reps and your union branch will give you whatever help they can with this process. Do not be shy about asking for help!