Night Tube Discussion

Guardian Article

"Around 450 staff members to date have expressed an interest in applying for voluntary redundancy. A total of 953 jobs will go, although 200 people could be redeployed to working on the planned 24-hour weekend tube services."

If the article is believed to be factual rather than biased, then it would seem that RMT are striking over circa 300 jobs and a change in conditions. Seems like a belligerent Power Play in political terms by Mr Crow.

There's been around 1000 people ask for VS quotes with 450 officially putting in a request. The biggest fear amongst the 450 is that there won't be enough allowed to go.

Any reason why the DLR couldn't run a Stratford-Tower Gateway service? Send all Beckton trains to Canary Wharf all day and to Lewisham in peck times and Stratford ones to Tower Gateway to keep a flow to the City other then NR and 25 from Stratford? The Central and H&C will not be runing to the city and the District will be running a limited service

Canada Water is on the closed list. This will make Shadwell busier than normal with ELL passengers changing for Canary Wharf on the DLR.

The Jubilee is already out between Waterloo and Stanmore.

West Ham Station could be closed to C2C services tomorrow guessing if this is the case the DLR will not be stoping here as well

38 GSMs will become 97 AM-Ss

190 DSMs will disappear

1771 SSs will become 1001 CSMs

1450 SAMFs/SACRs will become 666 CSSs

2224 CSAs will become 2500 CSA1s

486 CSA2s will be created from nothing.

As I'm of a certain age, I'm very interested in our pension scheme and from what I've seen and read there's no threat to our pensions.

The 450 that want to go is only from the station grades. If VS were opened up to all grades there'd be double that number, if not more. We've all been playing with the Voluntary Severance calculator that's on our intranet and we've been pleasantly surprised at the figures.

Wrong Rheostar! Our pensions will change, at least the station staff who are being demoted [of which I am one] My pay will drop by 8k a year, as my current grade will be abolished.My pension value will drop.

As for VS, 450 of an eligible 3450 have expressed a serious interest. VS is only really attractive if your of a certain age, early 50s, and you've done a fair few years. For everyone else, its worth a lot less.

There's a lot more to the dispute than has been widely reported.

The main issue is that a large number of staff in the current Station Supervisor, CRA and SAMF (booking office) grades are being forcibly displaced from their current role. The idea is that GSMs will automatically become AMS, DSMs will go into a selection process where they will get either AMS or CSM. SS will similarly go into a selection process and get CSM or CSS. SAMF and SCRA will go into a selection process and get CSS or CSA. The issue is that compared to existing grades, those in the selection process effectively get either a promotion or demotion, all based on a one-day "workshop", whatever that may turn out to be.

LUL used this approach with the recent 'OSP' reorganisation which involved certain management grades. I think station staff would have a little more confidence if the OSP had been seen to work well, but the fact is the OSP was a chronic disaster, creating a lot of resentment which is still festering 3 years on. Some of the grades created at the OSP have not worked out well in practice, and some of the people placed into certain roles have not generally performed well or have found themselves highly unsuited to the role they were allocated (I'm particular thinking of some of the DSMs who became DRMs or TOSMs). The issues in these grades have then rubbed off elsewhere as others see and exploit division.

As others have said, VS tends to favour those in the early 50s, and only those who were considering retirement early anyway. Again thinking back to the OSP, in my business area 4 people took VS. All these people were planning to take retirement anyway - one even deferred his retirement by several months in order to secure a VS package. For younger staff or those with fewer years service, the package is not so attractive.

My personal feeling is ticket office closures is the soundbite, but the issue runs far deeper than that. If LUL had announced had announced a reorganisation of numbers, but left the grades alone and promised that all staff who wanted to stay would be found a position somewhere, I think people would have been happier. Needlessly bringing all station grades into the issue has stirred up a hornets nest, and for that the blame lies solely with LUL.

Just seen on the TfL website that Covent Garden is open, even though it's not being served by trains. Any idea why this might be?

Fascinating document you've got there Ben - world's away today in some respects, then again, not so different either.

Council housing is for everyone. That we're supposed to think there should be a priority system for it is because the majority of it was flogged off cheap as a bribe with no replacement.

**Council housing was always, is still, and should always be for everyone.**


Its not just the RMT on strike, btw. The truth of the situation is, as always, in the details, the numbers, the finer points, the history, the relevant law, etc etc. No one has the time or the attention span to listen to the whole story and underlying reasons as they would take a tombe to list and reference. But they are there, and they are real.

In as much as Boris has said himself he 'doesn't do details', it can be oh-so-roughly summarized as thus: Boris prommised no ticket office cuts to Londoners and ran with that as a pledge for re-election, denigrating Ken about it in the process. Now he's changed his mind.

TfL doesn't have a good track record with being strictly or wholey truthful. Unstaffed stations have occured in the past in the suburbs, stations have been locked up at night by outside security firms aswell. These are recorded facts. There is legitimate concern that this will become the norm through one way or another, and the safety issue is that if someone is attacked, or vandalism, or self harm, or robbery, there might not be anyone around to either challenge the action, or help the victim.

Crow, admittedly does himself no favours at times. He plays the politicians at the same level they try to play him (just look at Crow vs Dick Tracey in the assembley transport committee meetings), but sometimes people just want passion and simple words without rhetoric or jargon. At the end of the day though he's standing up for a principal which is more than many politicians have ever done - even if it doesnt transfer well at times. Crow's is an image problem, Boris' is a substance one.

A contracted cleaner appeared to be performing gateline duties earlier at a local station; I wonder if this has been sanctioned appropriately?

I read that TfL are trying to wriggle out of paying refunds, saying it's a "planned closure" or "outwith their control" (as a passenger I don't care about the argument an employer has with its employees - if it annoys its employees sufficient that they don't book on for work, that's the employer's problem). Even so, many services advertised as running were not running as they were advertised.

An amazing announcement this afternoon :
"The Bakerloo, Waterloo & City and Circle lines are closed. The Jubilee line is operating a SPECIAL SERVICE, the Piccadilly line is operating a SPECIAL SERVICE, the Central line is operating a SPECIAL SERVICE, the Victoria line is operating a SPECIAL SERVICE, the Metropolitan line is operating a SPECIAL SERVICE, the Hammersmith and City line is part suspended, the District line is part suspended, the Northern line is operating with severe delays." but the real icing on the cake was the continuation... "There is a good service operating on all other London Underground lines".

Still, at least they admitted the delays - at one point the NB Northern line at Camden Town was happily reporting a good service on the line, whilst reporting the next train as being 24 minutes away!

Now I'm not seeking to defend Bob Crow, but one thing I would ask, is he really that well off?

Prior to becoming a full-time RMT employee he was working on P/Way, which unless you're one of the track engineers (i.e. not on the tools), doesn't pay masses.
His only really large income will have come from taking over as the RMTs General Secretary, and that lasts as long as there isn't a challenge to his leadership. Hardly a stable income for getting a mortgage is it?