Hello everyone. I am a tube station supervisor at a group of tube stations.
I was fortunate to not have to strike yesterday because of a rostered rest day. But If I was rostered on, I would have striked.
I just want to echo others that have knowledge of what's going on. Either as a staff member or partner of a staff member. Everything they are saying is correct.
My wage rise was part of a deal struck three years ago. TfL couldn't have predicted the rise in RPI back then. Unfortunately they preferred multiple-year pay deals. It came back to bite them on the bum. I don't think they will be doing it again.
Whilst my wage has increased over those years, my husband's has not. He's a postal worker. Postal workers have been offered a 2,2% pay rise this year, but to get that they have to work until 8pm, work Sundays and Bank Holidays. Since privatisation, postal workers real-time wages have reduced, whilst Royal Mail have cut staff to the bone. So my wages are now just about keeping us afloat. We live in a tiny flat in South London, mortgaged, and that's all we can afford. But going back to the postal workers, they are heading for strike too. Just like the couriers, airport staff, cabin crew, barristers (I was surprised how poorly paid they are) and of course the incoming national rail strike. Many TfL workers have partners whose wages have stagnated. Including healthcare staff.
I'll tell you how valuable having station staff is. About a month ago, a young woman approached me and said she was being followed. She said she lived a five minute walk away. It was 11.30pm. So I told the relevant people I'd be absent for a bit, opened all the gates, and accompanied her home. If she lived further away, I would have arranged a taxi. She comes back to see me often to say hello. Even her brother has visited to say thank you.
Some of my colleagues speak languages other than English. Vital in an emergency, or when talking about fares, or directions.
We assist people with extra needs. We guide people with visual impairment. We assist mobility impaired customers navigating stations with lifts and escalators. We help those with both obvious and hidden disabilities. We help when people fall ill on trains. We help when people cause hurt and distress to other people. We help when people want to hurt themselves.
We also do various things on and around the track to help keep the service going if needed. We crowd-control. We give information. We act on it too.
Usually I work by myself but have a part-timer at busy times. If I lose those part-timers, I am sunk. I can't manage my ticket hall and pull a sick person from a train at the same time. I can't help with an Oyster query and try and locate a lost suitcase concurrently. Just can't be done. So I'm fighting for their job. And around 600 others. You cannot automate us.
(Train automation requires billions of pounds of investment that TfL doesn't have so if you want to chat about that, we just say, "huh, that old chestnut")
I know what the Government want, and thats to sell off TfL. That's the background battle. But look at what happened after privatisation at Royal Mail. A bloody fire sale.
So in all, I empathise with OP. But if you want things to change, you have to take direct action. Yes, nurses etc need to threaten strikes! The threat of being bloody inconvenient changes things. (Green Park and Euston threatened to strike over a bullying manager during the Jubilee weekend and withdrew when that manager was moved) You have to join a union and you have to take part. There's a union for everyone. Yes, people moan about unions but we don't have anywhere near the same rights as in the 70s (look up anti-union laws brought in by the Tories). You don't even have to strike, but if your job relies on OT, don't do it. If your expected to look at emails and take phone calls after hours, turn off your devices. Being difficult works.
But anyway. I've typed enough. That's my take.