11 January 2022
Why London Underground members have voted for strike action on the Tube Introduction RMT members who work for London Underground have voted to take strike action by a massive 94%. This briefing note explains why they have been forced to take this step.
London’s Underground keyworkers and the Covid pandemic "Thanks for doing so much, thanks for all your hard work, I don't know how you do it." 1 Prince Charles to London Underground staff, 1st July, 2020 “Your members have been True Heroes” Grant Shapps MP, Secretary of State for Transport, letter to RMT, May 2020”
“It is absolutely heart-breaking that public transport workers, including TfL staff and contractors, have lost their lives to COVID-19. It is a tragic reminder that they are key workers who have gone above and beyond to help save lives. We owe them all an enormous debt of gratitude. Sadiq Khan, 21 May 2020. London Underground directly employs more than 17,000 staff as drivers, station staff, fleet and track maintenance workers. These people are transport keyworkers providing essential mass transit to a global megacity of more than 9 million people. They have continued to go into work on the Tube through the pandemic when other have been able to work more safely from home, helping to keep essential services running. They do this at considerable risk to themselves. At the height of the first outbreak, a third of London Underground staff were ill, self-isolating or shielding. Some died. Since the pandemic began, 3 in 4 Underground workers have experienced violence in the workplace as tensions, crime and anti-social behaviour have risen on the Tube.2 These people have earned warm praise from the Prince of Wales, from the Mayor and even the government. But now, thanks to a financial crisis at TfL which has been 1 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53268303 2 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-59205385
deliberately engineered by the government to generate cuts, these hard-working heroes are facing attacks on their jobs, pay, pensions and working conditions. These cuts are not only a shameful betrayal of keyworkers, they also threaten the safety and the very future of the Tube in London at a time when we desperately to encourage mass use of safe, clean and sustainable public transport. Late last year, RMT wrote to London Underground’s management asking for assurances there would not be cuts to jobs, changes to agreements that protect working conditions or changes to current pension arrangements London Underground’s management would not give these assurances and RMT members have now voted in overwhelming numbers to take industrial action.
Pensions under attack “I’ve made it clear that the Government’s approach to try to rush through reforms is wrong and ill-judged when our transport key workers have done so much to keep our city moving during the pandemic. The Tory plans risk unnecessary industrial action, which would be extremely costly to our city’s economy and entirely of the Tories’ own making.“ Sadiq Khan, 1st June 20213 As a consequence of its deals with the government, Transport for London has launched a review of the TfL pension scheme, supposedly with the objective of moving the pension scheme into ‘a financially sustainable position’. But there is no financial problem with the TfL pension scheme. It is currently more than 100% funded and the March 2022 valuation is very likely to confirm this. Yet the government has demanded a report with proposals for reforms that are completely unnecessary before the valuation reports. It cannot be stressed enough, there is no financial sustainability problem with the TfL pension scheme and it is pure fiction to say there is. The real agenda is to reduce the employer’s contribution and worsen members’ benefits. The government wants working people to pay for the crisis with a general drive down on their standard of living, while some at TfL believe that the pension scheme is too generous. TfL’s own independent review called the scheme ‘outdated’ and urged reform in order to reduce TfL’s costs. TfL’s financial crisis is being used as a smokescreen for employers within TfL to reduce their pension contributions and to attack our members’ pensions in retirement even though the scheme is perfectly healthy. We agree with Sadiq Khan when he said, “Telling those people responsible for heroically
keeping London moving throughout the pandemic that now is the time they need to pay more into their pension funds strikes me as neither fair nor reasonable. it is not their fault the pandemic struck and they have acted heroically this year.” The Mayor needs to make good on these words, stand by TfL workers and leave the pension scheme unchanged.
3 Sadiq Khan, Briefing, 1st June 2021. See also the Mayor’s letter to Grant Shapps of 27th May 2021: https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/mayor_to_transport_secretary_27_may.pdf 2
London Underground job cutting and restructure London Underground’s management have signalled that they intend to make deep and widespread cuts affecting Tube staff. In December 2021, they announced that between 500 and 600 station staff jobs are set to be axed under the plan which involves TfL not filling current vacancies or replacing staff when they leave. Vacancies are not being filled in engineering, as well as in track and train maintenance and there is pressure to use more casualised labour. Workloads are rising as London Underground tries to do more with less and there is pressure to reduce safety critical inspection and maintenance work on track and signals. RMT believes this is the beginning of a wider attack on our members’ pay, jobs and working conditions that will see jobs cut, workloads rise and more casualisation of work.
A disaster for passengers, heralding the decline of the Tube Transport for London and London Underground know that these attacks are a terrible gamble with the safety of passengers and the future of the Tube. TfL’s own research, mirroring that of Transport Focus, shows that staff are crucial to passenger safety and confidence and will be essential to rebuilding ridership on the Underground. TfL’s Customer Service and Operational Performance panel meeting in November 2020 heard that any recovery plan has to include ‘ensuring and promoting cleanliness, better station and crowd management, as well as lots of emphasis on the visibility of staff.’4 TfL’s own research also shows that there is a growing problem with anti-social behaviour and crime on the Underground which is having a scarring effect on passenger confidence. According to TfL’s data, 1 in 3 passengers have reported that they are worried using public transport as a consequence of an incident. 9% reported that they have been deterred from using public transport as a result of an incident. 5 Cuts to safety inspections regimes and maintenance work have truly frightening potential consequences. The transport industry has been here before in the 1990s and it ended in appalling tragedy and mass loss of life.
A disaster for London and the UK There is nothing ‘managed’ about this decline. If these cuts go ahead it will begin an uncontrollable spiral of decline on the Underground as passenger safety and confidence is eroded, further affecting finances, leading to higher fare prices and more cuts to services which drive yet more people onto the roads. Britain needs the London Underground. It needs more people using mass sustainable public transport. These cuts will make Tube travel more risky, less attractive, less accessible and more expensive. The decline of the Tube will generate more congestion in London’s streets and throw more pollution into its air, creating more dangerous roads and 4 https://content.tfl.gov.uk/csopp-20201118-draft-public-pack-update-for-web.pdf 5 Part-1-Item17-Finance-and-Policy-Committee-Report-230113 (tfl.gov.uk); (Public Pack)Agenda Document for Customer Service and Operational Performance Panel, 07/12/2021 10:00 (tfl.gov.uk) 3
more health problems for the population. It is not just our members that are under attack, it is the future of the Underground as a safe, high quality mass transit system that supports the British economy, helps us decarbonise our transport system and binds together London’s growing population.
What you can do to help: All that RMT is asking is that London Underground agree not to cut jobs, not to change the agreements that cover Underground workers’ working conditions and that there will be no changes to current pension arrangements Although the financial crisis is being engineered from Whitehall, the Mayor of London is in charge of Transport for London and he can stop these attacks on London Underground staff. We ask that you contact the Mayor and ask him to stand by his staff and his words. He knows these cuts are wrong. Please write to the Mayor and ask him to instruct London Undergrounds management to agree to the RMT’s call for assurances on jobs, agreements and pensions.
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