Your rep’s report of the main issues at the level one meeting between local reps and management on 17th February.
Read the report below, or click '1 attachment' / file name to download it as a PDF.

SRT covering SATS - again!
The SRT framework agreement states SRT should not cover any rostered duties unless the station falls below minimum numbers at short notice.

This is London Underground's guidance on attendance during adverse weather conditions, issued on 17 December 2009. It is posted here for your information, not because RMT agrees with it!

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Guidance for attendance for all staff in London Underground following adverse weather conditions.

• Employees are required to make every effort to get to their place of work and must use (and be encouraged to use) every reasonable means to achieve this objective. It is their responsibility to get to work.

The Director's meeting scheduled for this morning did not take place because the adverse weather conditions prevented the Director from attending.

The meeting will be rescheduled, and in the meantime, no staff will be forcibly moved away from their location.

It's confirmed: Boris Johnson has broken his promise that no London Underground staff would be penalised for being unable to get to work because of the heavy snowfall on 2 February. In answers to questions put to him by Green Party Assembly Member Darren Johnson, the Mayor backs up the unfair actions of London Underground management in every single respect.

Now we know how much a promise from our Tory Mayor is really worth!

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Below are the answers to the follow-up questions that Darren Johnson raised on our behalf at the London Assembly's Mayor's Question Time this month. They are based on information that RMT's London Transport Regional Council provided. After the Mayor ignored our letter, we wrote to all GLA members about this, and both Darren Johnson and Labour's Valerie Shawcross have taken up the issue on our behalf.

Following RMT's lobbying of Greater London Assembly members on the issue of "snow day pay", both Labour's Valerie Shawcross and the Green Party's Darren Johnson have offered to raise the issue with the Mayor.

Darren Johnson asked the following question and got the following reply:

Management are slowly backtracking on the snow pay issue, but we need to provide further evidence where staff got paid or had to give up leave or take a day as unpaid. We have already given them evidence but for some reason this isn’t enough!

RMT has written to all members of the Greater London Assembly (except the BNP bloke - we don't lobby fascists) asking them to ensure that London Underground keeps Boris Johnson's promise and stops deducting pay or leave from staff who genuinely could not attend work due to the heavy snowfall in February. You may wish to contact your own GLA member to help follow up this letter. You can find out who s/he is by clicking here.

We also delivered the letters to City Hall on Wednesday 17 June, accompanied by a snowman (pictured, addressing assembled protesters).

RMT has also tabled the issue for discussion at the forthcoming Company Council.

RMT tube workers will be taking a protest to Mayor Boris Johnson’s question time this Wednesday – 17th June – over his broken promises on the London Living Wage for some tube cleaners and over the docking of pay for staff who could not get into work on the snow day in February.

What they say ...
Boris: I won't dock pay of snowed-in Tube staff after all... Mayor Boris Johnson today backtracked on a decision not to pay Tube staff who failed to turn up for work because of the snow. ... A spokesman for Mr Johnson said ... "The Mayor has absolutely no intention of penalising anyone who failed to get to work due to last week's exceptional weather."

Your RMT Regional Organiser has sent the following letter to Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

Dear Mayor Johnson

I am writing to you on behalf of London Underground staff who were unable to attend work due to the heavy snowfall in early February. I have to alert you to the fact that London Underground has deducted pay or leave from them as a result.

Below is a summary of the items discussed at the most recent Staions and Revenue functional council meeting.

Adverse weather

Following 2 referrals from Kings X and Harrow we discussed at great length the punitive measures used by LU, with the treatment of deducting 1 day’s pay or 1 day’s annual leave from staff who couldn’t get into work due to February’s bad weather.

Despite assurances, managers are insisting on deducting pay or leave from staff who could not get to work on day of heavy snow in early February. RMT is not going to tolerate this, and will not - as LUL seems to expect us to - let the issue go. Regional Organiser Steve Hedley has sent the following letter to Gerry Duffy, Director of Employee Relations.

Dear Gerry

Under pressure of RMT's loud protests, London Underground management conceded that employing managers have the discretion to dock neither pay nor leave from staff who genuinely could not attend work due to the snow at the start of February. Both management and the Mayor told London's newspapers that staff would not be penalised due to the weather conditions.

But it seems that now the headlines have faded, some managers think that they can punish you for a situation beyond your control and have made staff take either unpaid leave or annual leave for the snow days. If this has happened to you, submit a grievance.

From RMT head office circular No. IR/70/09, dated 5th March 2009

DEDUCTIONS FROM PAY OR LEAVE BECAUSE OF SNOW

Some LUL members have lost pay or a day’s leave because of heavy snow prevented them coming in to work on Monday 2nd February 2009. The fact of the matter is that TFL decided not to run the buses, so it is totally unfair to punish staff.

From today's newspapers ...

RMT press release, issued today

THE ASTONISHING decision by Transport for London to dock the pay of Tube workers unable to get to work because of last Monday’s bad weather has been slammed as unfair, illogical and discriminatory by the network’s biggest union.

The new issue of RMT Platform reveals LUL's plans to drive away custom from ticket offices as a prelude to attacking jobs. It also reports on RMT's efforts to win justice for members who could not get to work because of last week's snow, the unproductive SRT Review, plans for a strike ballot on Willesden Green group, and management's latest escalation of its attendance clampdown.

Issued by the Trades Union Congress, 3 February 2009

As workers struggle back into work following the recent snowstorms, the TUC today (Tuesday) issues new advice about when it is reasonable to stay at home and how employers should treat time lost through bad weather.