Tube strikes: ‘It’s a nonsense to argue that the money’s not there’

  • UPDATE 6 November 2024: The threat of a week of strike action has forced London Underground to drop its plans to withhold the full consolidated pay rise from some tube workers. The RMT and ASLEF unions have suspended action to allow for further talks on the pay offer. Full report to follow.

RMT Rail Maritime and Transport Workers trade union national rail strike picket London Victoria Station

by Gary Harbord, Secretary, LU Train Grades, personal capacity

The transport union RMT’s strike on London Underground, 2-8 November, remains on.

Talks are ongoing. London Underground offered an average pay rise of 4.6%, worth up to 5.9% for the lowest paid, but strings attached mean that not everyone gets a consolidated rise.

RMT Victoria Picket
RMT Victoria Picket. Photo: Paul Mattsson

The company’s plans are a threat to our collective bargaining, with management being able to arbitrarily impose the limit of what our members are paid (see Tube strikes are back: ‘No union could possibly agree’ further down this page).

This is unacceptable for a large proportion of our membership and it remains our position that all pay rises in future should be fully paid and consolidated. We want a commitment from the company to work towards an ending of the pay bands and the introduction of ‘spot salaries’ (where all people in that grade are paid the same).

The hopes that some members had with a Labour government have quickly disintegrated. The Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, was quick enough to moan about the funding cut when the Tories were in power, but he’s done nothing to demand that the funding should be reinstated. Instead, he’s offering up the excuse of the alleged £22 billion ‘black hole’ that the New Labour government says it inherited.

Workers on London Underground generate billions of pounds for the London economy every year – it’s a nonsense to argue that the money’s not there.

What’s needed is political will to redistribute the wealth in society. That can only be done by implementing RMT policy “to work for the supersession of the capitalist system by a socialistic order of society.”

RMT members will continue to fight for a fully funded, publicly owned, democratically run, sustainable transport system in our capital.

  • In a separate development, members of the RMT in the Emergency Response Unit (ERU) are facing attacks to their jobs, terms and conditions. The ERU deals with people under trains, derailments, fallen trees and network repairs. London Underground bosses have proposed a reduction of 10% in staffing levels, a reduction in team sizes from six to four, and the imposition of a new roster. This will lead to a significant risk to the travelling public. Consequently, ERU members have imposed an overtime ban from 30 October, with the threat of escalated action if management doesn’t back down.

Tube strikes are back: ‘No union could possibly agree’

RMT and Aslef unions on London Underground have announced several days of strike action from 1-16 November, over pay.

Jared Wood, regional organiser of the RMT, was interviewed by LBC radio.

“We’re fairly confident that we could sit down with London Underground and thrash out an agreement on the size of this pay award. What has caused the strike action is a ridiculous insistence by London Underground that whatever award is agreed between us, they will then, as management, take a unilateral decision on who is and who isn’t eligible to receive it.

Victoria picket line
Picket line at Victoria, central London.
Photo: London SP

“This is an absurd approach to negotiation, which no trade union could possibly agree. We’re negotiating for over 10,000 members right across all grades of London Underground, and when we negotiate a deal in good faith, we expect that to be applied to all of our members.

“What they want to do is impose a system of pay banding across all London Underground grades, where at the moment that doesn’t exist. And they want these ‘pay families’ to determine wage levels for different grades.

“There’s already banding in certain parts of London Underground and we’ve dealt with that over many years. But what they’re now saying is that banding, and any rules that they apply, are now sitting outside of any negotiation between the trade unions and the employer.

“They will have the final say. They will be able to limit whatever a pay rise is. They will be able to determine whether an individual, who perhaps moved jobs in the previous 12 months, is going to qualify for the pay rise.

Good faith

“And we’re not going to accept that. We think that when we sit down to negotiate for 10,000 members, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Whatever agreement is reached in good faith should be applied to everyone.

“The pay offer from London Underground is 3.8% plus a flat-rate element of £450, which is something we have always argued for. We always try to structure offers so that they address our members who are on lower pay, because most of our members earn much less than a train driver. We do represent a great many train drivers, but we represent even more people who are not. And so we look to protect those people from the effects of inflation. We think we’ve made a bit of progress with London Underground in that respect, but we can’t accept this clause that they will then go away and decide who gets it.

“Members are looking at their bills every month. They’re looking at what they’re paying in gas, electric, food, like everyone else out there, and they’re saying we’re not prepared to take another real-terms pay cut.”