Forthcoming tube strikes

The Evening Standard I was reading over someone's shoulder earlier didn't give any more dates but did say that (some group of staff) would be starting an indefinite overtime ban from Wednesday. It forecast that this would be even more disruptive than the actual strikes.

What I'm not clear on is whether DLR and/or LO staff are striking too?

In addition maintence workers are on strike from 1700.

TSSA members have been instructed to walk out at 2100 on Monday and not return until 2059 on Tuesday. RMT members are undertaking a slightly different, and more typical, industrial action by not booking on for any duty that starts from 2100 on Monday until 2059 on Tuesday, but will finish their duty.

I'm surprised to learn that more than a handful of duty managers are taking part - perhaps an indication of the problems?

Further strikes are planned on Sunday October 3rd, Tuesday November 2nd and Sunday November 28th. All due to start at 2100 - although the method of walk out isn't determined.

There's absolutely no way of telling what will happen until the time arrives - there are many factors that may or may not have a bearing, not least of which is the numbers of staff that turn up for work.

There are 4 main ingredients involved in providing a service:

• Station Staff
  
• Train Operators
  
• Service Control Staff
  
• Maintenance Staff

I'm currently on annual leave and have been for the last two weeks, and being in ASLEF (not involved in the planned industrial action), I'm not fully up to speed on what's what - but AIUI the action is being taken by members of RMT and TSSA.

The RMT are most prevalent on stations, but stations are the weakest force as trains can still run a service for the most part, even with some stations closed. Stations in open sections can remain open with no staff presence; only stations (or in some cases platforms) which are deemed as sub surface by the definition of the Fire Precautions Act (sub surface railways) 1989 [or whatever today's equivalent is] legally need to have a minimum staff presence. If those stations can provide the necessary number of staff, be they suitably qualified managers or any other suitable grade, they can remain open. With TSSA being involved (generally their membership is made up of Station Supervisors & Managers), they could tip the balance on this occasion. In any case, 100% support would be needed and historically station staff never support industrial action 100%.

Train operators can of course make a big impact. Now some lines are very big with the RMT, others are not so but may have a single depot that is predominantly RMT. TSSA has very little or no presence on the train side. Taking the District as an example, all depots have a presence with both RMT & ASLEF but there's an East/West split. West end depots tend to tip the balance towards RMT but the East end favours ASLEF. Upminster in particular is about 90% (if not more) ASLEF. The reason for that is the West end has newer drivers which come off stations and bring RMT membership with them; the East end has more established drivers and most tend to switch to ASLEF as they settle into the grade.

So with the trains side on board you'll undoubtedly see the train service affected, but with ASLEF drivers not involved, all is not lost.

Service Control staff are probably the most powerful asset to the Unions - without controllers and signallers you can't run a thing. And this is where RMT, and TSSA in particular, do have a strong presence. There are certainly managers qualified to step in and they have been utilised in the past to cover industrial action, but again TSSA membership and support is the key here.

And finally the maintenance staff. This mainly falls to the RMT and can be a bit of a mixed bag as Rosterd Duty Officers (Director level) have the authority to suspend the rule book (must be justified) - in essence they can remove the 24 hour train prep requirement and thus run trains even if they haven't been prepped by depot staff (in this instance they normally make it 48 hours). Same goes for track inspections. Signalling maintenance could be an issue if there are no Technical Officers available but the ERU could be available as a back up, depending on their Union membership status.

So you've got all the above plus individuals deciding whether or not they wish to support the industrial action. If there's an overtime ban going in place on stations, that could be the straw that breaks the camels back as far as stations support goes - it's well known that most station staff will support industrial action in the blink of an eye as they can earn back lost pay through overtime; something train side can't do as overtime has long been banned.

So it's all ifs, buts and maybes at this stage. It could all be called off at the 11th hour anyway, though I can't see that happening TBH.

One last thing I would like to add is I don't like all this talk of "Scabs" or whatever phrase you choose. There are a lot of rights and wrongs with this dispute, on both sides. Asking someone to lose several days pay when the end result is quite likely to achieve very little is a big ask. Peer pressure is not on when bills have to be paid, etc. Particularly in the current climate of the real world. I'm just glad ASLEF are not involved and I don't have to make that decision.

Not when managers are paid £200 to offer to have a go at being a signal operator.
They get about two hours on a computer simulator for one location, then sit and watch anywhere they go to.

Two hours.

Open air stations will be kept open in most cases.

In underground stations they are given people crash courses in stations in order to make up minimum numbers.

Well I know of several controllers who don't do that.

Also that the people paid £200 are Centurion managers and above and people from 55 Broadway.

Any ideas from anyone on whether the Heathrow branch will be kept open as a priority or am I going to have to slum it to work on the bus the whole way? Also will there be any knock-on effect in to Thursday?

I'm sure it's possible to discuss these things reasonably without "sinking" into a debate, even where people disagree - we certainly managed to have a good tempered discussion about the strike at work the other day, even though there were strong disagreements. I would also say, as has been raised in this thread, that going into work and doing your own duty is very different from volunteering to do a different job and/or work overtime to cover someone who is losing money doing something they believe to be right i.e. striking.

Also, Colin raised the strength of the unions in service control, unfortunately TSSA only balloted their station staff, while RMT balloted all their LU members. This leaves us in an odd position - I'm in the RMT and will be striking, my colleagues in TSSA have not been called out although TSSA station staff have been.

Now, I've never been in a strike situation, but by hell does it need it at Lincoln bus depot.....[/li][li]

Anyhow, if you are one of the people to vote against strike action, haven't you got the right to go to work, or does the ballot mean all union members comply?

[/li][li] They are sacking people for going to the toilet at the wrong time just now, and thus being late out of the bus station! If you have a blameworthy accident, it's back to driving school for six weeks resulting in a driving test, failure means the sack, and that's regardless of the incident. They are even planting money onto buses to see if the driver is honest enough to hand it in.

Pay union subs for almost five years - but when the time comes you really need the union's help - in a case of unfair suspension followed by unfair dismissal - the union HQ at 10 Melton Street claims it has no record of you. Several weeks of correspondence back and forth, after the dismissal has already occured, and the union still says it cannot find any trace of your membership. I'd never join another union.

In the transport industry, I'd not be without some sort of union membership.

Ok, they didn't particularly help me in my hour of need, nor a lot of the people sacked over the time I was employed there, too busy sorting wages out, but they did back me and made sure I got fair treatment.

We had one bloke sacked because of something I can't mention as it's still ongoing, but for me, that was an "all-out" because the company were bang out of order. My direct supervisor was also sacked for swearing at a driver. Yes, just swearing. The union should have picked up on this, but failed to, so as a result, swearing is a sackable offence now, as is the case I can't mention.

Add to that, my own condition means I can't drive, but the union didn't do anything in response to my sacking, nor have they done anything about the bloke that just got sacked for having excessive time off for cancer treatment.

Local reps need to hard up a bit, and start some serious fights for the rights of the workers, but not to the point where the Labour Government of 74-79 was dictated to.

It's not the mature discussion in our workplace that bothers me, but the occasionally mis-informed posting on here (of which there has already been examples of in this thread) which tend to inflame situations.

Industrial action threads on any forum, by their very nature, tend to be very delicate. You constantly run the risk of those who are in favour of the action coming up against their colleagues who may not be, mixed in with the views of those outside the company who simply want to travel.

Completely disregard that link. No one knows [Except God] what will be running.

It isn't a he. ;D