Tuesday 9 June 2015


The envelope containing my ballot paper has been returned and in two weeks’ time we should get the result although if it turns out to be anything other a resounding vote in favour of a strike I think everybody will be shocked.  TSSA have joined the other two unions in balloting their members so we could have all three unions in dispute on the Tube for the first time since 1926; at last Boris can claim to have achieved something during his time as Mayor of London!

Despite this dispute being purely about terms and conditions there’s always someone who wants to believe it is something it’s not and a load of “Tubeworker” leaflets have appeared around the depots inciting us to “TAKE ON THE TORIES”.  These are produced by Workers Liberty, a handful of Trots who still think the proletariat are on the threshold of rising up against the running dogs of capitalism and seizing the means of production rather than sat at home watching “Britain’s got talent”.

I could well believe that management would love to depict our strike as political, there were some who accused RMT of calling a strike on Network Rail because the Tories had won the election even though the dispute had been running for months and they’d started balloting in April.  Regardless of the motivation the threat of a strike was enough to get a revised pay offer and the same worked for our ASLEF colleagues on Southern where they’ve been offered 3.2% after rejecting 2.6%.  If our fellow railway workers can get a decent pay rise through threatening to go on strike it seems highly unlikely we’re going to accept 0.75% especially when we are also being asked to work even more unsociable hours than we do already for an insultingly small amount.

In other news after over 60 years of reading the Daily Torygraph (because she’s ex-Foreign Office and it used to have the best foreign news coverage) Old Mother shugged is no longer prepared to endure it’s right wing bias and has switched to the Grauniad.  Which I suppose proves that it’s never too late to change.

17 comments:

  1. Oh joy, the the whole of London gets held to ransom and possibly brought to a standstill just because ASLEF, RMT and TSSA (what a surprise the RMT are rearing their ugly heads again) spit their dummies out and refuse to accept that the days of inflation busting payrises are all but gone.

    Roll on the tougher union legislation, and even tougher legislation for transport workers

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    1. The days of inflation busting pay rises clearly aren't gone on the railways, Southern getting 3.2%, Network Rail 2%, London Overground 2.25% and none of them are being told they'll have to work overnight at weekends.

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    2. Hear, hear. Also, it's not about massive pay rises, its about changing our terms without even having the decency to attend talks with our unions!

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    3. Because of Child care issues I will be taking early retirement next year, and with these new shifts at weekends maybe the right time. I wonder how many Drivers who do late turns every week, will be willing to do nights at the end of the week. I would imagine some them will just follow the normal roster from now on. Some Drivers who have done only early turns for maybe the last 10 to 20 years could be in for a rude awakening, when their is not enough early turns for them as more Drivers just do their own early turns.

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    4. I suspect all of us are going to find ourselves stuck with those Night Tube weeks, no one is going to want to swap.

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    5. Effective management would have engaged with the elected representatives of the workers and found a means to deliver the business plan. That kind of effective management isn't even worthy of a bonus because it's what's called "doing your job properly", yet bonuses will flow like wine in the executive tier. So I suppose it's true that you don't need a union to get an inflation busting pay-rise, just be a member of an institute instead; like the institute of directors.

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  2. The sooner unions are banned the better!!

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    1. I dare say you're not in or have a strong union? Jealousy is a wicked thing.

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    2. I dare say you're not in or have a strong union? Jealousy is a wicked thing.

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    3. I also love it when people post comments on here about banning unions etc, etc without really knowing what's going on. The same people who believe everything they read in the Standard. When will they realise they're being treated like mushrooms...kept in the dark and fed shit!

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    4. Can you name me one democracy where unions are banned?

      Perhaps you need to reflect on the sort of country you want to live in and move to somewhere more suited to your views. North Korea, maybe??

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  3. If you feel that way, why don't you give back your holiday entitlement, sick pay and all the other things that unions have fought for to improve the lives of ordinary working people. But you won't because you're a cunt.

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  4. Can we keep the filthy language to ourselves please.

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  5. Our terms and conditions are being attacked because we have a government attacking them. To truly defend ourselves from this - and whatever comes next such as Fit for the Future Trains - we need to take the fight beyond the workplace, as the boss (not to make excuses for him) is doing what the government is telling him or pushing him to do by cutting funds.

    As it stands the Tories want to take jobs from some of us, take our pay and conditions from all of us, and when we are unemployed as we've been made redundent or are too sick to work, they will take our benefits too and turn us against one another.

    Yes, many people are Apathetic, but the solution is to try and change that - which includes things like Tube worker which has been going for over twenty years, rather than to suggest giving up as lots of others appear to have done so too.

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    1. Utter rubbish, what London Underground is doing has nothing to do with the Tories. They introduced Oyster before the Mayor, the GLA or TfL even existed, it was obvious that back then that the plan was to close ticket offices and reduce staffing. Ken agreed to closing some ticket offices but in exchange he wanted more staff rather than less, all of which was while Blair was in No.10 and Labour were in government. As everyone knows Boris came into office promising to keep every ticket office open but he went back on his word and allowed management to do exactly what they had been planning all along.

      The same thing will happen with driverless trains, management will introduce them regardless of who is in government. On the Paris Metro the automation of Ligne 1 was done under a Socialist mayor and Council although over there management accepted that they needed the co-operation of their employees to do so and engaged with the unions from the beginning.

      This is about Night Tube, management are trying to ignore our agreed terms and conditions, it goes no further than that and the idea that we should somehow “take on the Tories” is ridiculous. You can wave your red flag all you want but I think you will find that most of us simply want a fair deal for the job we do.

      The revolution will not be televised.

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    2. Well said that man.

      Saddiq Khan has recently pronounced that if he becomes Mayor there will be a fares freeze for his whole time in office. Given that TfL will at the same time be faced with a further reduction in government grant drastic cuts would be needed to fulfill his commitment. There are no prizes for guessing where...

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    3. Can you name me a candidate, either Labour, Tory or Green, who hasn't promised to reduce fares? The Lib Dems are excused because despite having loads of London ex-MPs they still haven't found a candidate.

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