Latest Rail News

02.12.15

Revised Night Tube pay offer ‘not up to expectations’ of union leaders

Representatives from rail union RMT are not satisfied with London Underground’s (LU’s) latest Night Tube pay offer and will consider what the next steps should be in the dispute, it has been revealed.

Its general secretary, Mick Cash, said yesterday (1 December) that the union had held its first meeting after LU published a revised and more polished pay offer for Tube staff in an effort to end the ongoing row.

But the feedback from the meeting was that the offer did not match up to the union’s expectations across the board, and fell short in “a number of key areas”.

“That feedback will now be considered by the union’s executive committee, who will make decisions on the next steps that RMT will follow over the Night Tube and pay and conditions issues,” Cash said.

“External attempts to apply pressure on RMT’s internal democracy and processes will have no impact on our procedures whatsoever.”

LU urged rail union leaders to consult their leaders on modified offers after a revamped proposal was put forward last week.

As part of changes to pay and staffing conditions, the company guaranteed that the previous three-year pay offer would be extended to four years – covered by LU’s business plan – in order to provide further job certainty.

Steve Griffiths, LU’s chief operating officer, said the revised offer was a result of close attention to union feedback, meaning no existing driver would have to work the Night Tube unless they chose to do so.

As before, LU will offer a £500 bonus for all staff on Night Tube lines, but it will no longer pay a £200 bonus per Night Tube shift to drivers.

At the time, union leaders did not comment on the offer itself, instead just blasted LU’s management for releasing the revised proposal to the media before giving unions enough time to read its contents or consult with representatives.

Finn Brennan of Aslef, which represents 85 % of Tube drivers, said: “It's good to see that the RMT reps and their executive committee share our view that the current offer is simply not good enough.

“I hope that all the unions on LU will now work together to achieve a settlement that is fair for all staff.”

Unions had decided to re-enter talks with LU management on 10 November in a fresh attempt to end the dispute, but talks have repeatedly failed since. It is now fairly clear that the service will, as rumoured, be pushed back to 2016.

RTM has contacted the TSSA union for comment but has not heard back yet.

(Top image c. Tim Ireland/PA Images)

Comments

Neil Palmer   02/12/2015 at 17:11

The unions are just trying to steal every last penny they can from the public purse. Pure greed. Driverless trains on all tube lines can't come soon enough to put a stop to this blackmail.

Jerry Alderson   04/12/2015 at 16:07

Neil makes an assumption that the only staff needed to run the tube are drivers. If the system were made free-to-use during the night, which is might as well be because most people using it will be daytime users as well (and therefore have tralvelcards, season tickets etc), then the barriers could be left open and ticket advice could be avoided. However, we are a very long way from following many other cities (such as Paris, Copenhagen, and several in Germany) in having "driverless" trains and, of course, Neil is really referring to 'UTO', which would least to a "staffless" Tube. In Vienna, where I have had many trips in the last 2.5 years and would probably be considered a near-expert on their transport system, they have very few *visible* staff (the entire city has no ticket barriers of any kind) but they will only be introducing "driverless" in the early 2020s, when their new U5 line opens. About 18 months ago I wrote an article on tube staffing based on my experience of Vienna. See: http://www.railfuture.org.uk/article1498-Tube-Staffing My personal advice to the London Underground unions would be to reach a settlement fairly quickly before the government's new legislation to curb unions comes into effect as that will weaken their hand somewhat.

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