I have written the following article for 'Solidarity' newspaper ...

One of London Underground's pretexts for cutting jobs and slashing ticket office opening times is that new technology, in the form of the 'Oyster' smartcard ticketing system, has significantly reduced purchases at ticket office windows. There are several reasons why this 'reason' is disingenuous:

This is the speech I made to RMT's public meeting against job cuts on 31 March ...

I work as a Station Supervisor at Bank.

London Underground wants to cut hundreds of SAMF and CSA jobs. At my station, these grades work very hard in difficult conditions.

They are the people who:

• evacuate the station in emergencies
• answer questions and give information all day
  

London Underground tells us that it "has to" cut stations jobs because of the economic crisis. But a look at London Underground's history shows that this is not just untrue - it is the opposite of the truth.

Over on the RMT London Calling website, I have posted a detailed guide to the directions and guidance recently published by the PPP Arbiter. This is an important document, which may turn out to be a staging post in the collapse of Tube Lines and – following 2007’s similar collapse of Metronet – of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) itself.

Click the link to read the guide in full, or click 'read more' below to read extracts of particular concerns to station staff.

These are my notes for a speech I made at RMT's AGM in support of a resolution calling on the union to run a national campaign against ticket office cuts and closures. The resolution was passed unanimously.

Last week, I went to one of LUL's 'Time for Action' workshops for Station Supervisors. Every Supervisor on the Underground will be going to one of these events.

So what is it all about? It's all part of management's plan to stop us being 'dinosaurs', make us 'unafraid of change', and get us to supervise station staff more effectively ie. get them to work harder. I came away feeling strongly that the key theme was to change the workers rather than to change the way that work is organised. LUL does not intend to change itself; it intends to change us.

I have already posted a couple of blog entries about particular debates at this year's RMT AGM. Here is a round-up of other discussions - all from a personal point of view, of course!

This is the first time I've been a delegate to RMT's AGM, but not being the shy, retiring type, I had a hatful of resolutions to propose, and something to say on several others.

I was very pleased to propose this resolution at RMT's AGM. I had written it as a response to the collapse in Labour's vote in the May 1 local elections, when Boris Johnson won the London Mayor's job for the Tories and Labour Councillors around the country had to clear their desks in the Town Hall. My branch, Stratford no.1, discussed and agreed it, and thus it found its way to the union's AGM as an emergency resolution.

This week, I have been out of London at RMT's Annual General Meeting in Nottingham. I am one of eight delegates from the union's London Transport region who met up with over 50 delegates from the rail, maritime and transport industries around the country to make the union's policies.

Over the next few days, i will post on this blog reports of what we discussed and decided. I'll report on my contributions to the deliberations - after all, since union members elected me to go and represent you, you are entitled to know what I got up to!