Update from your TfL Reps - 2 February 2022

MyJourney and Action Short of Strike

You may have been asked by your manager to complete sections of MyJourney, particularly your readiness assessment and objectives. We have confirmed with TfL that our action short of strike covers non-participation in the completion of MyJourney but does not preclude having a conversation with your manager about workloads, your development needs and readiness. We have developed a proforma for you to use to set out your readiness and development needs, which is filed on our Teams site and also linked to the button below. If you don't already have access, please request it after clicking the link. We have also ensured that the manager's guidance reflects the need for managers to have a conversation with you about how to ensure that these elements are covered, whilst you are participating in the lawful action.

Readiness and Development Plan Proforma
 

Fair pay for ALL TfL Staff

Why we're taking action short of a strike and how you can get involved

For many years the senior leadership of TfL has played a classic game of ‘divide and rule’ – pitting TfL employees against their colleagues in London Underground and vice versa.

Last week, when asked by staff about the reasons for the differing and divisive pay awards in TfL and LU, one senior leader at TfL said: 

“Operational colleagues do a really different job, on shift working patterns, often working evenings and weekends, often in difficult and borderline dangerous situations… our colleagues on the front line are what we should all be orientated behind to support in facing into the public and facing into the maintaining of our network, often in really appalling, hot, horrible, dirty conditions…”

This completely fails to recognise the many operational staff employed by TfL, such as those in the Compliance, Policing, Operations and Security team, who work on the frontline but receive lower rates of pay, and lesser pay rises, than colleagues in similar roles on the Underground. Or to the many colleagues such as cleaners, who are employed by contractors and work in those exact same conditions, but are paid the London Living Wage.

It also fails to recognise the hard work and commitment of professional services and support staff who go above and beyond to ensure London's transport services - above and below ground - are safe, financially viable and continuing to operate.

Having seen thousands of colleagues in back office roles leave the organisation over the last five years as part of ‘Transformation’ cost-cutting measures, to add insult to injury, TfL’s senior leadership continues to expect staff to absorb the extra work that’s left behind whilst seeing their pay fall behind inflation year on year on year.

The truth is that the main difference between these groups of staff is industrial bargaining strength, and it’s time to send a clear message to TfL’s leadership that ALL TfL staff should be treated fairly and equally.

We recognise and value the work of operational colleagues across TfL and LU, many of whom work shifts, including weekends and nights. However, many TfL support and professional services staff also work evenings and weekends to get the job done – they just don’t get paid or recognised for it.

That’s why we’re reminding you of our ongoing action short of strike and calling on members not to work overtime and not to volunteer to be a TfL Ambassador.

We refuse to accept the leadership’s ‘divide and rule’ tactics. We respect ourselves and the work carried out by our operational colleagues. So when TfL sends you an email asking you to train up and volunteer as an Ambassador, remember that you may well be used to cover for operational colleagues should they take industrial action.

Now is the time to stand together, to stand up for ourselves. 

There’s more information about the background to this dispute and our ongoing action short of strike on the TSSA website.

All TSSA members in TfL pay bands 1-3 should continue to take action short of a strike as follows: 

• Members are instructed not to work beyond their contractual hours. This includes all non-contractual overtime, refusing out of hours phone calls, taking full meal breaks and VDU breaks.
• Members are instructed not to participate in their personal Performance and Development Review process
• Not to volunteer for Travel Ambassador duties or any other duties outside their Job Description
• Not to buddy or mentor agency staff with Customer Experience roles

However, if you have line management responsibilities then you should conduct Performance and Development reviews for those staff not participating in the action short of strike.

Return to Offices

We discussed Return to Offices at our member call on Tuesday last week where you wanted more clarity about the expectation for attendance  in the office for 2 occasions a week. We are raising this at a local level with each Local Consultative Group as the fine detail of how the guidance is implemented locally is left to local directorates. Please get in touch with your local rep if you have any specific concerns or join our next call.

Policy Review

We are finalising feedback with TfL on the first three of the HR policies being consulted on. We have asked TfL to enable the drafts to be published so that you can see the initial policy more easily and they have put a page on Platform to enable this (click the link button below).   Current policies can be seen here, also on Platform and the updated timetable  for the review of policies is filed on our teams site (request to join, if you haven't already done so). 

We are providing updates to members at our Tuesday calls but please contact Caroline Cheales if you would like to be more involved.

Draft HR Policies