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Tube strike will affect two-thirds of lines

Monday, 03 September 2007

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"It is astonishing that the administrator can decide all sorts of things, including who will take over the PPP contracts, but is unable to give an unequivocal guarantee that the jobs of the people who will actually deliver the Tube's upgrades will be safe. We have been told that the pension-fund trustees will be "urged" to ensure that employees lose no pension during the period of administration, but no amount of 'urging' amounts to a guarantee, and this is not a matter for the trustees in any case."

"It is the employer's duty to ensure that pension provision will be no less favourable than before the PPP, as promised by the deputy prime minister, and what we need from the employer is the simple guarantee that there will be no reduction in pension rights, past, present or future. We said from the start that our members were not prepared to pay for the collapse of Metronet with their jobs and pensions, and that remains our bottom line. What our members want is to be transferred to a public-sector organisation, and that is the only way in which their jobs and pensions can be protected," Bob Crow said.

Mismanagement

Metronet was responsible for the maintenance of nine out of twelve Tube lines, including the Bakerloo, Victoria and Central, under a private-public financing initiative, and had announced plans to invest £17bn over the next thirty years. However, it failed to secure additional funding after cost over-runs estimated at £2bn by 2010. It had asked London Underground for £551m to cover extra costs to upgrade parts of the Tube system but instead was awarded £121m by the PPP regulator. Last month, Transport for London (TfL), the transport authority that controls London Underground, blamed mismanagement and a lack of financial control for the overspend. Metronet responded by saying that TfL and London Underground had changed the specifications since signing the contracts.

The unions' wider political agenda behind the planned strikes takes in the unions' resentment of Public Private Partnership (PPP) funding arrangements and Metronet's "fat cat shareholders". The unions have made clear that the 2012 Olympics could become a transport nightmare if their demands are not met.

"Our members are the people who get out there and keep the Tube running seven days a week, and it is they who will deliver the improvement the network must have if it is to be up to the standard required by the 2012 Olympics. The PPP stands in the way of those improvements, and the time has come to return the work to the public sector where it belongs. Maintenance on the national railways has improved massively since it was brought back in-house, and that is the only sensible solution for the Tube as well," Bob Crow said.

"Of course we welcome Ken Livingstone's desire to bring Tube maintenance back in-house, but the fact remains that the guarantees we need can only come from the employer. When the jobs and pensions of our members are at stake - not to mention the Tube upgrades that the capital cannot do without - vague assurances are not enough, and the strike by our members will go ahead at 6pm on Monday."

Meanwhile, The Times has reported that ministers have hired the investment bank UBS to advise on the aftermath of Metronet's collapse. UBS will assess the bid by Transport for London, championed by Mayor Ken Livingstone, to take over the maintenance of the Tube system.

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