At the moment, we don't know which tube lines will run or at what times because nobody knows how many staff will strike tomorrow. Tube strikes are always a nuisance for Londoners. Listen to the chatter of the ordinary working folk on the buses tomorrow. They won't see why the train drivers need more money. There's always somebody who argues that strikes are called to early, and never as a last resort. Somebody else will argue that they're only paid when they go into work, and that they don't have the luxury of striking. The current tube strike is not about money though, it's about jobs. TfL currently employ 4 full time staff at Kennington station. If the TfL cuts go ahead, only 1 full-time member of staff will be employed at the station, and they'll only staff the ticket office for 3 and a quarter hours each day (during the morning). If you want to speak to a member of ticket office staff (if the machines break, or you need a season ticket), you'll have to go to the underground ticket office at Elephant and Castle or Oval. Perhaps you can't see a good reason for retaining so many staff members with the current degree of computerisation. I'd tend to argue that staff members who know the station are more important for emergencies (eg. fire or terrorist attacks), but then London's only on "severe" threat for a terror alert, so the risk is slight, right? Arguments can be made in several directions.
One of the members of staff that will lose his job is Paul. Say "hello" to Paul if you see him at Kennington. I only know him by sight. The strikes (in my view) are unlikely to prevent the job losses, so he probably won't be around for much longer as his job (as with the other 2 full time Kennington staff members) is on the line. I'm not sure I can make a convincing argument about why one particular member of staff should be retained so I'm just putting one name to a face. When you're on the rammed buses or can't find a Boris Bike tomorrow, don't moan about the strikers, just ask whether you'd be willing to justify the redundancy of an ordinary man named Paul.
When they came for the communists...
Posts
Friday 14th June, 2024
-
Album of the Day: The Zutons – Who Killed the Zutons? This did my nut in,
tbh. The screeching guitars were matched by a bloody screeching voice. It
picks u...
6 months ago
7 comments:
A thought-provoking post.
TfL claim that no jobs will be lost, and that ticket office staff will be redeployed to the gateline and platforms. What's the reason for the discrepancy at Kennington?
Are TfL 'downgrading' Full Time roles to Part Time, and using that to still claim that 'no jobs will be lost'?
Are members of staff at Kennington facing compulsory redundancy, and are TfL deliberately misleading the press? If so, someone should leak this info...
Oh, drat it. I only spoke to the staff briefly :) Not sure whether he'd be "downgraded" or lose his job completely (there's only so much detail one goes into during that type of conversation).
It wouldn't surprise me if TfL were decreasing people's hours, but not firing people, so that they could claim that nobody was 'losing' their job.
I think that all tube stations are supposed to be manned until the last tube of the day... in Kennington's case, that means that there would be a minimum of 14 8-hour shifts... on a busy station like Kennington, you also need additional staff on the platforms during the peaks, for safety, and presumably cover so that staff can go on a lunch break, etc.
I really don't see how they could trim it down much further from four full-time employees - I'd even question whether four full-time employees was enough to cover all of the shifts / duties adequately.
TfL also haven't really explained what will happen if you need to use a ticket office, but the one at your station is closed. What happens if your Oyster card is broken? That's not something that can be fixed at a machine. Will they give you a free ticket to a station where the ticket office is open, so that it can be sorted out? It would be pretty outrageous if in effect you had to 'pay' for the privilege of using a ticket office.
The problem with organisations like TfL is that the public has little visibility of the staffing levels, and it's in very few people's interest to keep them at a sensible level.
If for e.g. the engineering deprtment was grossly overstaffed, say by a factor of two, the public would have no way to know that. It's not visible in any anual reports, and we don't get to see those operations. There's also little to no commercial pressure to increase efficiency. The only way you'd know about such inefficiency was if you had a friend who worked there, or it was exposed by the press.
^^^ I should clarify my earlier post (#3) - I meant that there would need to be a miniumum of 14x 8-hour shifts in a week.
I disagree with the comment (#4) about there being no commercial incentive to reduce inefficiency. If there were no such incentive, why are there closure proposals on the table?
Is there part-time staff in Kennington too? I would have thought there were more than 4 people working there.
I know a Northern Line driver. He couldn't tell me exactly how many p/t staff work there, but they have manpower for the platforms, 'front of house' and also the sidings - as you'll know, some trains turn around at Kennington...
Post a Comment