Staff displacement - Ongoing dispute

It's worth pointing out that management pulled the same tricks in 2008 when the East London line drivers were displaced to Leytonstone. They place too good to be true agreements on the table that the unions agree to at the first chance, thinking that management will keep to them, then at first chance management break the agreement. In the case of the East London drivers at Leytonstone, they wanted to displace them to Brixton for the opening of the new depot on the Vic line. When the unions disputed it, management just threatened to move 49 rostered drivers from Leytonstone just so they could break the agreement, when we looked over the seniority of the drivers proposed to be moved, the most senior driver had been at Leytonstone since 1984! Unfortunately, to management, the agreement had been made to be broken, the manager who put the agreement on the table was due to retire so not available to take responsibility. They knew it wasn't sustainable but they had to have a seamless displacement so promised the Earth, then taketh away 😞

"Why do the unions agree to these things?" You may ask, well a union is its membership, even though the membership often forgets this. A union makes its decisions based on consulting with its members at branch or within the workplace, if a member has an issue or proposal, they can attend a branch meeting (or by proxy) and table a motion for discussion which will then be voted on and written into branch business. Any policy taken up is come to by the mix of the members who turn up and have their say, if the majority who turn up are of a militant tendency, then the outcome will usually be a militant approach, same for a moderate majority leading to a moderate outcome. When management table a proposed agreement, the union reps then bring it to the branch meetings and also make members aware by letters to homes of members and workplace newsletters, members then see a highly agreeable proposal and a vote to acceptance is usually come to, so the reps take a mandated agreement to management and accept the proposal. Believe it or not, most staff do believe that the management are benevolent and would never break an agreement, but time and again we end up in this predicament. The irony is, that in a time where people bang on about democracy and democratic process, one of the true democratic processes of policy is lambasted by both the media and public alike. My opinion based on observation is that people really don't want to see real democracy in action 🤔