Night Tube: London Underground bosses put pressure on staff to accept annual pay deal

PA
Dick Murray29 October 2015

Tube bosses have begun holding private face-to-face meetings with staff trying to persuade them to ignore union instructions and accept a deal covering annual pay and the launch of Night Tube.

Saff are taken to one side individually or in small groups and instructed to send their decision on-line to maintain confidentiality.

LU feels if it can gain majority support for the combined deal they could then seek openly to defy the Tube’s powerful unions and launch the weekend 24-hour service.

It says the unions have refused to put an “improved” deal to its members.

Furious union leaders, however, accused London Underground (LU) of living in “cloud cuckoo land” by attempting to persuade staff to accept the deal already heavily rejected in official ballots.

The plan to side-step the unions was revealed by the Evening Standard in a front page article two weeks ago.

Steve Griffiths, LU chief operating officer, said: “Our offer has been reworked considerably from where we were when the trade unions balloted their members for strike action.

“Because the unions haven’t put this new offer to their members we’re continuing to seek the views of our staff through a mixture of face-to-face meetings and online feedback.”

Night Tube should have begun operation on key lines on Friday and Saturday nights on 12 September. LU was forced to abandon the launch after failing to get agreement over pay and working conditions.

LU insists on a combined annual pay and Night Tube deal. The unions want the two issues to be dealt with separately. They accuse LU of trying to “blackmail” staff by insisting no annual pay rise without Night Tube agreement.

Aslef, the union representing the majority of train drivers at the centre of the Night Tube dispute, recorded a 97.6 per cent result in favour of strike action in protest at the deal– one of the highest ever figures recorded during an LU industrial dispute.

Manuel Cortes, leader of the TSSA white collar and managerial union, today accused LU of “sneaking behind the backs” of the unions, of inflaming an already tense situation and leading to even greater delay to the start of Night Tube.

He said: “LU already know what our members think because we have told them. This sneak strategy on which they have now embarked is not just an act of bad faith it is inflammatory.

“LU management is living in cloud cuckoo land if it thinks we don’t have the solid support of our members.”

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