After not meeting since October 2009 your reps and management met again on Tuesday 18th May to continue talks surrounding issues on the ex-silverlink stations. Items discussed were as follows:

As well as the attack on Core Station Supervisor training outlined here, the following issues were also discussed at Monday's Joint Working Party about the ex-Silverlink stations:

London Underground management are trying to whittle away the core roles of a Station Supervisor by creating a part-qualified Supervisor grade on the ex-Silverlink stations. RMT believes that this is both unfair on the staff who will take up these Supervisor jobs and a threat to the Station Supervisor grade in general.

LUL has issued new contracts to staff. It is OK to sign these, as they are standard LUL contracts. If you want management to clarify anything before you sign, you have every right to ask them.

Staff went on to LUL conditions from 6 April, but will not get the pay rate until June! RMT continues to fight for the pay rise to be backdated to 11 November last year: the date of the transfer.

The following letter was sent to On The Move. It was not published, so we re-print it here. (Update: It was eventually printed in a later issue.)

Anyone reading the article ‘Silver Service’ in the last On The Move would think that the ex-Silverlink employees on the Bakerloo and District lines are now working in paradise. However, this is far from the truth.

It is two months since eleven stations transferred from Silverlink to London Underground. So why are we still on our old, lower pay rates? And why do we have lots of problems? Answer: Because London Underground Ltd (LUL) has not acted to give us our equality and rights. And what can we do about that? Get involved with the RMT trade union.

Staff have told RMT reps about various problems. We raised them all with LUL:

• Agency staff do not know how to do the banking, so existing ticket office staff have to do it. Management said they would look into this.
• LUL has delivered equipment to stations but not installed it eg. printers, microwaves. Management said there had been a problem with telephone lines that was now resolved, but they would look into any outstanding problems.
  

• Casualisation and De-Staffing
• Agency Staff
• Your Working Hours
• Medicals and Training

We start the new year with a special issue of RMT Platform for ex-Silverlink staff, reporting on pay and conditions and workplace issues.

Download it here.

LUL plans to move ex-Silverlink staff into the following LUL grades:

• Barrier staff, platform announcers and fire wardens will become Customer Service Assistants (station duties, barrier, patrols and platform announcements);
• Booking office staff, ticket office clerks and CSA multifunctionals will become Station Assistant Multi-functional (mainly ticket selling; some station duties);
• Supervisors will become Station Supervisors.

RMT’s view is that this makes sense, with two ‘buts’:

• Eleven stations on the Bakerloo and District lines have now transferred from Silverlink to London Underground. RMT welcomes the transferring staff into our region, and the stations themselves back into the public sector. The new staff will get better pay and conditions. But LUL intends to delay this by several months. RMT is demanding that as soon as they put on an LUL uniform (11th November), they should get LUL pay.

YES to

• well-staffed stations
• LUL work done by LUL employees
• every station to have a Supervisor
• equality for new and existing staff

NO to

• security guards
• agency staff
• mobile Supervisors
• a two-tier workforce

On November 11th, several Bakerloo and District line stations - together with platforms at three other stations - will transfer from Silverlink to London Underground.

Silverlink stations on the Bakerloo line (Queen’s Park to Harrow & Wealdstone) and the District line (Kew and Gunnersbury) are to transfer to LUL, as are Silverlink platforms at Blackhorse Road, Highbury & Islington and West Brompton. RMT welcomes this, as Tube services run through these stations and it brings a few small parts of the privatised mainline railway back into public hands.

Silverlink station staff will become LUL employees, with a big improvement in their pay and conditions. But LUL has plans for the transfer which should alarm us all. The company intends to: