On Monday, 9 January 2017 08:30:37 UTC, Recliner wrote:
Does anyone know what the latest strike us about? Is it another political
one, or do they have a legitimate case? If it's about the closed ticket
offices, surely it's a bit late for that?

It seems to be less well supported than expected, as LU is running many
more services than predicted.

Just because a station may be open does not mean lots of staff have broken the strike. May be other HQ staff and managers drafted in temporarily.

The strike has metamorphosed somewhat. The dispute goes back to Boris's decision to close all ticket offices. That policy was implemented without agreement with the RMT and TSSA. £135m was spent on closing offices. I am sure that Boris knew he was leaving a potential mess for whoever succeeded him but he didn't care. Whether you agree with this strike or not it's a bit ridiculous to just plough on without agreement of staff members. It's always going to rebound.

The rebound has now happened because it's evident that LU got the numbers wrong and assumed vast amounts of overtime would be worked. The unions implemented an overtime ban and hey presto - station closures have multiplied. My local station has been closed umpteen times and people are (rightly) livid at being mucked around. It would be even worse if the GOBLIN service was actually running. The Mayor then implemented a "review" which didn't recommend reopening offices (it was never going to) but did point out a load of flaws and issues. We are now in a situation where LU accept they have to recruit more staff while the unions are pointing out that there is natural turnover of 300 a year plus 100 current vacancies. LU propose 200 new posts - the unions are clearly arguing for far more to cover the turnover and vacancies and then raise the staffing complement. There are other issues such as loads of stations staffed with just one person plus a new grade with lower wages. I suspect they are all part of the debate but the main one is numbers. You have to ask why 800+ people were allowed to leave and now there is an acceptance that 200 more people are needed. Someone got their numbers and assumptions badly wrong somewhere.

I suspect there is a tiny bit of politics here too. The Mayor said "no strikes" which is just an encouragement to the unions to force a broken promise.. Regrettably there will always be some sort of industrial action on LU or buses or DLR sometime in a 4 year period. It's therefore stupid for Mayors / candidates to set themselves up for a fall as Mayor Khan has done. Worse he's created the impression there is something better within reach "if only people sit round a table". They did that again over the weekend and got nowhere but the Mayor is still saying the same thing today. All this does is raise false hopes and run the risk of more strikes to push more concessions given the Mayor's opponents will now be slagging him off at every opportunity. Therefore the Mayor will want a settlement but will he settle at any cost? Hopefully not as the budget will be screwed even more in consequence if loads more staff are recruited again. This also sets a very poor precedent for future pay negotiations. The TUs are great at spotting weakness - as you would expect them to be.

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Paul C
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