This morning (23/06) the trade unions met London Underground management to discuss the impact of the TfL funding settlement. The government has only agreed to short term funding and has added various conditions including a review of service levels, developing a business case for driverless trains and a review of the Tfl pension scheme.
Management told us that LU was already committed to making £509 million of cuts prior to the pandemic. This cuts program will now be brought forward as TfL is required to be “sustainable” i.e. not receiving government funding for operating costs by April 2023.
The managing director told us that they intend to review every aspect of the organisation and that needs to be done urgently. He claimed that there needs to be “permanent changes to the way we work” and that there will have to be “flexibility in staff models and agreements”.
Management say that they have no firm proposals yet and they want to “engage” with unions on the way forward. They want to identify “high level options” by the end of August and have detailed discussions at Functional level from September. They say that they will work through the agreed machinery of negotiation and if there are to be any job cuts they will come through voluntary means.
ASLEF made very clear that while we will take part in meetings in line with the machinery in order to protect the interests of our members, that does not mean we will accept any of management proposals. We will protect our members working conditions, agreements and pensions.
A further meeting will take place in two weeks at which we expect to hear more detail on how management propose to proceed. There will also be a meeting to discuss how the review of the pension fund will be done.
We will report to reps and members as soon as we have any more information.
Finn Brennan
ASLEF District Organiser.
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