| Thousands of London Underground workers are due to receive strike ballot papers over the threat to cut hundreds of jobs and close almost every Tube ticket office. The RMT accuses executives at the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, of attempting to “hollow out” transport services in the capital, reducing the network to an “unsafe shell” at the time when increasing passenger demand requires more staff, not fewer. Officials say management has attempted to divert attention from the impact of the cuts and closures on safety and working conditions, by portraying the dispute as one over longer running hours. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “The RMT ballot opens as tube bosses mount an all-out campaign to divert attention from their lethal and ill-conceived proposals. RMT will not give Boris Johnson the opportunity to bend, distort and ignore the facts. “Those planned staff cuts impact on every single member of tube staff both in terms of future employment prospects, recruitment freezes and in terms of the safe and efficient running of tube services. “That is the issue we are balloting on over the coming weeks. “That is also why the RMT campaign is running under the banner “Every Job Matters.” “The reality of course is that any move to longer running hours would require more staff not less as maintenance schedules are compressed and stations are flooded with revellers rolling out of bars and nightclubs at three o’clock in the morning. “The idea that they would be piling into unstaffed stations controlled by a member of staff three stops down the line with an iPad is lethal nonsense.” Senior RMT officials say they intend to run a campaign in the coming weeks at tube stations, working with community and disability groups, to spell out to passengers what they say is the truth about the “cash-led cuts”. The ballot is schedules to close on January 10, 2014. - See more at: http://union-news.co.uk/2013/12/rmt-ballot-begins-ipad-tube-cuts/#sthash.71pHzQbd.dpuf |