Unions demand bigger Olympics bonus as they reject £500 deal for Tube staff working during games
- RMT urges staff to hold out after DLR staff agreed a deal under which they will get up to £2,500
By Ray Massey
Last updated at 12:43 AM on 31st January 2012
Thousands of militant Tube workers yesterday rejected a £500 bonus to simply do their jobs during the Olympics.
Union bosses insisted it was not an ‘adequate reward’ for 14,000 staff including drivers, station and ticket staff, signallers and engineers.
The RMT, led by Bob Crow, was accused of holding London Underground and Olympic chiefs to ransom after talks on the payment ended in disagreement.
Tube workers have rejected the latest offer of pay for not going on strike during the Olympics
The breakdown sabotaged the VIP launch of a campaign to persuade spectators and commuters that the capital’s transport system can cope with the huge demands of the Games.
The bonus would come on top of £1,200 extra already earmarked for 3,500 Tube drivers for working different and longer shifts during the Olympics.
And all Underground workers are getting a generous four-year general pay deal. This will leave the average driver’s annual salary at more than £50,000 for a 35-hour week with more than eight weeks of holiday.
General Secretary of the RMT Bob Crow says his union just wants ‘a fair deal’
Former Transport Minister Stephen Hammond MP said: ‘The unions should not hold London to ransom during the Olympics as millions of people struggle during these difficult economic times.’
Matthew Sinclair, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: ‘The Olympics has cost enough without the threat of Tube drivers holding the capital and the Games to ransom.’
The controversial bonus is an annual payment based on customer surveys.
Both the RMT and bosses agree it should be higher this year to reward the ‘additional effort’ of staff, but cannot agree by how much.
The rejected amount, claims the union, is made up of £100 for meeting ‘unspecified and arbitrary’ targets. The remaining £400 is based on £20 per shift over the month-long event, when millions of extra people will use the transport system.
But the hard-line union objects as those on leave or off sick would receive ‘less or nothing’. It also claimed: ‘There is no reward for the increased workload taken on by staff.’
RMT chiefs are also angry that: ‘This offer does not reward staff for the work during the run-up to the Games.’
General secretary Mr Crow said the union would continue to press for an across-the-board payment to all staff.
‘All we are calling for is a fair deal for all the staff involved in delivering the colossal transport challenge that we will be facing this summer,’ he insisted.
Transport for London boss Peter Hendy said the breakdown in talks was ‘a tactic’. He added: ‘We will get a deal with the RMT. Our staff are going to be very proud to do this.’
Let the Games commence: The deal would cover a period of almost nine weeks during the Olympics and Paralympics
Other transport workers are also cashing in on the Games. Just days ago, workers on the Docklands Light Railway were given a deal worth up to £2,500 to work up to five hours of guaranteed overtime per week during the event.
More than 500 staff on the London Overground are also getting a bonus of at least £600.
The latest dispute threatened to overshadow the high-profile drive to boost public confidence that London’s transport network will cope with the huge demands of the Olympics.
‘GO FOR A BEER TO BEAT THE OLYMPIC CROWDS’
London’s Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy has suggested people should ‘go for a beer’ to help space out their journeys at peak times during the Olympics.
He was speaking as a publicity campaign was launched today to try to help people navigate London’s public transport system during the Games.
There is information available online of the 30 busiest stations and where ‘in theory’ people could be waiting for half an hour, he pointed out.
Mr Hendy said: ‘With a bit of forethought and care about when you use the transport system at a very busy time it will all work out alright.
‘I have never seen anyone in a Tube station for half an hour – go for a beer.
‘We are on track but still have an awful lot to do. We have got to get the athletes to the Games but we also have to keep the city moving.’
The campaign also suggests other options for people, such as working at different times or locations, teleconferencing rather than travelling to meetings, or alternative modes of transport including walking and cycling where practical.
Those involved included Transport Secretary Justine Greening, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Lord Coe, head of Olympics organisers Locog.
Mr Hendy said: ‘We’re not saying it will all run perfectly. We’re trying to make it run as well as we can. It’ll be all right.
‘You don’t need to sit under the table with a tin hat on and tins of beans for the duration.’
He hit back at what he called the Olympics ‘gloom-mongers’ and urged commuters to help by staggering train journeys by going ‘for a beer’ after work.
Mr Johnson urged ‘Olympic fat cats’ to ‘get on their bikes’ or use the Tube to get around.
On the bonus dispute, he appealed to train workers’ better nature, adding: ‘The majority will want to participate in a great Games.’
Miss Greening said: ‘I urge the unions to agree an early resolution of this dispute so Londoners, visitors and businesses are provided with the service they need during this once-in-a-life-time sporting celebration.’
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London 2012 Olympics: Danny Boyle’s Shakespeare theme for £81m opening ceremony
- Hollywood director Danny Boyle chooses Shakespeare theme for £81m opening spectacular
- 27-ton bell inspired by Shakespeare will form the centrepiece of £27m opening ceremony
- Hundreds of NHS nurses and schoolchildren will be involved in event
- 20,000 performers will take part in Olympic and Paralympic opening and closing ceremonies
By Emily Andrews
Last updated at 1:43 AM on 28th January 2012
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games will feature a performance by hundreds of nurses, it was revealed yesterday.
Artistic director Danny Boyle – the Oscar-winning director behind Slumdog Millionaire – said he wanted to celebrate everything that was ‘unique and special’ to the British Isles…including the National Health Service.
Europe’s biggest bell will be specially made to ring in the start of London 2012.
Our turn next: Mark Foster of the Great Britain Olympic men’s swim team carries his country’s flag to lead out the delegation during the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics
The 27-ton bell will be a feat of engineering and twice the weight of Big Ben.
Mr Boyle said the ceremony will be called ‘Isles of Wonders’ after a speech in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest.
More than anything, he said, he wanted it to be a ‘people’s Games’ and to try to capture the very particular, and sometimes peculiar, British sense of humour.
A sense of humour that has, at times, been tested by the spiralling budget for the Olympic ceremonies – last month it doubled to £81million.
At the vast rehearsal studios in East London Mr Boyle gave a small glimpse of what 80,000 spectators and millions of TV viewers can expect on July 27.
The biggest ringing bell in Europe has been commissioned and will hang at one end of the stadium.
It will ‘ring in’ the start of the Games and will be inscribed with Caliban’s line from The Tempest ‘Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises’.
Shakespeare, NHS and schoolchildren will be at the centre of the Olympic Opening Ceremony display, Danny Boyle, pictured, revealed today
The half-man, half-monster Caliban is devoted to the island on which he lives – and Mr Boyle hopes to mirror that pride and patriotism in the ceremony.
Indeed he seemed to be rather keen on monsters – he said that last year’s production of Frankenstein at the National Theatre had allowed him to practise lots of ideas.
So perhaps we’ll see lots of prosthetics, green paint and pantomime costumes alongside runners from Kenya and gymnasts from Russia.
Another theme will be the cleansing and recovery of poisoned land – after the Olympic park site was cleaned of all its industrial pollutants.
Greatest show on earth: The spectacular Opening Ceremony in Beijing in the Bird’s Nest Stadium four years ago
One certainty is that there’ll be lots of flying – and flowers. A flying system that can lift 25 tons, the equivalent of five elephants, has been installed in the main stadium to enable some impressive aerial acrobatics.
‘EMPLOYERS UNPREPARED FOR GAMES ABSENCES’
Most employers have not drawn up plans for dealing with an expected surge in staff absence during the Olympics, months before the Games start, according to a report today.
A survey of 1,000 office workers by recruitment consultants Badenoch & Clark showed that two-thirds were employed in companies yet to draft a plan.
Among those who have agreed procedures in place, some said annual leave will be given on a first-come, first-served basis, while a small percentage have told staff they will not be allowed to take a break while the Games are held.
Employers in London are among those most likely not to have told their staff about holiday plans when the sporting event is held in the capital.
Nicola Linkleter, managing director at Badenoch & Clark, said: ‘Given the immense interest the London Olympic Games will create among workers, this is poor planning that could lead to employee discontent, confusion or threadbare cover.’
And Sebastian Coe, chairman of London 2012, dropped another hint by saying whenever he popped down to see rehearsals he kept tripping over buckets of flowers.
So it will be noisy, acrobatic, colourful and floral. What else?
Well, the only other confirmed part was that nurses will have a starring role in one ‘sequence’ as the NHS is one of the things that is ‘unique about us…along with our sense of humour’.
Featuring with them will be some 900 children from the six Olympic host boroughs who have been auditioning in recent weeks.
No details of performers were revealed – but again a hint that ‘everyone’ wants to take part. But we can expect the spectacular. And the unexpected.
Asked if the fear of technology going wrong had ensured they play safe, executive producer Stephen Daldry implied they would be pushing boundaries. He said: ‘The idea of jeopardy is one of the great fantastic tensions of the evening.’
Mr Boyle said only about a third of the budget would be spent on the opening ceremony, which was much less than the £65million the Chinese spent at Beijing 2008.
He said: ‘You are standing on the shoulders of giants when you do this kind of job. You cannot but live in the shadow of your predecessors.
Countdown: Sebastian Coe, Boris Johnson and David Cameron discuss the six-month countdown to the Olympic games in Davos yesterday
‘The spectacle of Beijing was just breathtaking. The sheer beauty of Athens is very inspiring but I have to say that Sydney has inspired us. It got the feel of a people’s Games right.
‘It is inevitable that people will compare us – and that is fine.
‘I think there is a sea change and we are lucky enough to be setting it. It will be spectacular but the reduction in scale is inevitable.’
London 2012 said it will release more details of the opening in the run-up to the Games to give people a flavour of what to expect.
Mr Boyle said he would have preferred to keep everything a ‘surprise’ but that was impossible when everyone ‘films everything on their mobiles’.
Estimates suggest the advertising spend during the ceremony, which will last three hours, could be worth £2billion globally.
‘LIKE 165 WEST END SHOWS AT THE SAME TIME’: FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR OLYMPIC OPENING AND CLOSING CEREMONIES
Staging the four showpiece opening and closing ceremonies for the London 2012 Games is ‘challenging, daunting but also incredibly exciting’, executive producer Stephen Daldry said today.
He described it as like putting on 165 West End shows at the same time.
Nurses, the biggest ringing bell in Europe inscribed with lines from Shakespeare, and children will be key features of the opening ceremony.
Here are some of the facts, figures and details behind the ceremonies.
For the Opening Ceremony there is:
- 15,000 square metres of staging – equivalent to 12 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
- A flying system that can lift 25 tonnes – that is the same as five elephants.
- There will be 12,956 props, which is more than 100 times more than used in a West End musical.
- A million-watt PA system using more than 500 speakers and 50 tonnes of associated sound gear – which is double the amount of speakers than on the main stage at Glastonbury.
- The design team have made enough scale model pieces to cover a 100m running track. Every performer has been represented by a plastic figurine.
- So far, 64 different supplier companies have been contracted to provide services and products.
- For all four opening and closing ceremonies there will be 25 containers full of scenery and props and 75 containers of costumes full of 23,000 costumes. Some cast members will wear more than one costume each.
- 15,000 volunteer cast across all four ceremonies. The people who have auditioned have been aged from 18 to 90 years old. They have come from across the UK and include people who watched the 1948 Games live, according to London 2012.
- A total of 12 hours of music working with an internationally renowned orchestra of around 60 musicians is part of the programme. Organisers will spend three months of recording time in the studio and spend 36 hours in dedicated drum tuition.
- The combined TV audiences for the four ceremonies is predicted to be more than four billion people. Sir Martin Sorrell has predicted that the equivalent airtime value of the four ceremonies will be worth between approximately £2bn and £5bn.
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London 2012 Olympics: Going for gold? Not this bunch of numpties…
By Martin Samuel
Last updated at 7:55 AM on 9th December 2011
The increased funding for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is not the most redundant use of taxpayer’s money
You would think that in a week when some genius decided to blow £81 million on a quartet of glorified firework displays, a more Olympian waste of time and money could not be found.
And you would be wrong.
The increased funding for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympic and Paralympic Games is not, in fact, the most redundant use of the public purse this century. That prize would go to the burghers of Epping and a body called the Epping Town Centre Partnership.
They agreed, at a meeting on November 23, to push forward with plans for a weekend-long festival of jazz, art and fashion to be held next July. The idea, with the Olympics due to start at the end of that month, is to capitalise on the occasion by drawing visitors to a High Street increasingly on its last legs.
You have to feel sorry for them. Epping’s shopkeepers have been sold the fantasy of Olympic regeneration but, like many, they will find only another dead end. No tourists will come to Essex for jazz while Ronnie Scott’s remains open; no culture vulture will travel to the farthest reaches of London’s Tube network for an art fix when the National Gallery sits on Trafalgar Square.
Epping is hoping to compete with the giant Westfield shopping centre at the Stratford Olympic complex. It may as well try to beat the Government’s £81 million welcome with bonfire night at the Rotary Club.
This is the payback for years of mediocre local planning. Councils have killed the High Street, driving away trade with punitive parking fines and restrictions, and ticket-hungry wardens with an eye on the clock, ready to pounce. If the price of popping into a shoe shop is an additional 60 quid bill stuck to your windscreen, people will buy online or at an out-of-town shopping centre.
Murdered: An empty Epping High Street which has suffered under excessive parking fines and the failing economy. A jazz festival is not the answer
This week, a writer in this newspaper bemoaned the bleakness of the modern consumer experience. She hankered for the days of sausage-fingered butchers and old spinsters in the post office. She grew up in Goff’s Oak, ten minutes down the road from Epping by car. She obviously doesn’t like jazz.
Shops are going out of business, which means the councils are out of pocket as landlords.
Now they are panicking. Without the wit to raise revenue by other means, having milked the High Street for all it is worth, uncaring as trade fell and premises closed, they have been left high and dry by the downturn. Now come the big ideas to reverse this process of decline: jazz and art weekends, indistinguishable farmers’ markets, the desperate throw of the dice that is some specious Olympic-themed jamboree.
More from Martin Samuel…
This is not the fault of the traders. They have been reduced to acts of hopelessness by local government minions who would not have a clue how to keep a business going if it was delivered to them with stacked shelves and a queue around the block.
And don’t look to TV bores like Mary Portas, self-styled retail adviser, either. When the queen of shops opened her first outlet — Channel 4 documentary crew from in daily attendance, of course — it turned out to be a piddling concession in the giant House of Fraser on Oxford Street.
That isn’t a shop. House of Fraser is the shop. House of Fraser pulls the people in, occupies the prime position, takes all the risks. Portas feeds off them like the retail equivalent of a sabre-toothed blenny, a small fish sucking on the healthy scales of much bigger fish.
We shouldn’t look to TV bores like Mary Portas, self-styled retail adviser, to save the high street
If Mary would like to truly show the world how to run a shop, she might try heading out to Epping with a better idea than attempting to compete with the world’s biggest shopping centre. She wouldn’t dare. So allow me
There is a reason supermarkets offer accessible free parking. Convenient, no extra cost to the consumer and no pressure to go home or leave the store to feed a meter. It is so simple. Whatever is raking them in at Tesco, it isn’t jazz.
A decade ago, 43 per cent of the population said they would pay more for ethically-produced food.
Now it is down to 26 per cent. Do you know what that means? Seventy five per cent of them are still lying.
Opportunism. It sounds so harmless. And as justification for the summer riots so much less spiteful than greed, revenge or mindless nihilism.
Yet the best of human nature is our willingness to overcome opportunistic urges; not to take candy from babies, or pension money from the most vulnerable people.
It is why we return lost property, too.
Firefighters tackle the flames following riots in Croydon in August this year
The concept of opportunism is merely the law of the jungle with a PhD. Those with a moral code resist. So a report by the London School of Economics that attempts to repaint looting and violence as taking advantage of a situation does a disservice to the rest of humanity.
We evolve from little kids getting their dinner money nicked in the playground to a world that functions on established ethical principles. When violence begins, no one is compelled to follow its lead.
After Edinburgh Zoo received a very special delivery from the East, the question was asked: is the world ready for a Scottish panda? I don’t see why not. He’s got two black eyes already; on Saturday nights, he’ll fit right in.
London 2012 Olympics costs are unacceptable as we teeter on the edge of a slump
Pleading guilty to being a party pooper, ROBERT HARDMAN says that as we teeter on the edge of a slump, the ever-soaring cost of the Olympics is unforgiveable
By Robert Hardman
Last updated at 11:42 PM on 7th December 2011
Every day, the organisers of the 2012 Olympics must thank their lucky stars for unending global economic disaster. ‘Pheweee,’ they mutter as another basket-case economy in the Eurozone demands another trillion on pain of implosion.
Because if times were normal and stable, there would not just be an outcry about the handling of the London Games. Heads would roll.
Ministers would be apologising to the House every week.
Instead, we just shrug. Another billion or three chucked down the pan by another bunch of unsackable incompetents? Never mind. It’s only a few billion. That’ll barely cover their pensions anyway.
The London 2012 Olympics running track: The cost of the opening ceremonies is just one of those that has dramatically increased from the original estimate
Hence, our virtual indifference to this week’s announcement that Olympic organisers have miscalculated the number of security guards required — by, er, more than 100 per cent.
Last week, the Games were going to need 10,000 guards. This week, the figure has been revised to 23,000. Once again, never mind. Let’s throw money at the problem. We are going to spend an extra £271 million to resolve the matter. That’s £21,000 per extra guard. Not bad for a fortnight’s work. That’s more than some soldiers in Helmand get in a year.
Who is to blame for getting this so amazingly wrong? Yesterday, I asked the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (the bit of the Government in charge of the Olympics), the London organising committee LOCOG and the Home Office.
Each one steered me to one of the other two.
The Home Office offered the following general explanation: ‘The plans for venue security have matured considerably as venues have been completed.’ It’s not terribly reassuring, is it?
Barmy
Arial photo shot of the London 2012 Olympic Stadium to mark ’1 year to go to the Olympic Games’. Expected costs of the games have risen yet again this year
Meanwhile, in other news, the opening and closing ceremonies will no longer be a £40 million festival of British exuberance. The cost has doubled. Only the other day, one of the organisers assured me that the extravaganzas would be so spectacular that they would make me ‘weep’.
Clearly, it has already made other people weep. Because we now learn that the Prime Minister has authorised a further £40 million from the Olympic contingency pot to be spent on the big show.
Why the doubling of the budget overnight? What on earth was wrong with the original plan?
Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson assures us that it will be money well spent in terms of promoting Britain.
Perhaps this former Army officer can, at least, insist that the organisers include the most famous image of London in their show in return?
For as things stand, not a single member of the best display team in the land — the Foot Guards — has been invited to take part. If we have to cough up another £40 million, can we please see a few bearskins and the Band of the Household Division in addition to all The X Factor winners and East End diversity acts.
Just about everything we were promised in the barmy, cocksure campaign to secure this municipal ego trip has failed to materialise.
The bills are soaring. The fluffy bunny stuff about ‘inspiring’ a new generation of athletes has been proved to be palpable nonsense. As for the promise of a tourism bonanza, it’s looking so grim that West End theatres may have to shut up shop for the duration.
Every day, we get news of a fresh ‘adjustment’ or a tweak to a particular budget.
If we are going to have to spend an extra £40 million, can we at least have some Household Cavalry thrown into the proceedings?
My personal favourite is the swimming pool, originally planned for a whopping £73 million and now well on its way to the £300 million mark.
The roof alone has cost more than £100 million.
Just this week, we learned that the pool needs yet another top-up. Don’t worry. It’s just another £5 million. Why?
Apparently, it is because of ‘the greater clarity now established on the final costs of commissioning the venue’. In other words, we got our sums wrong — again. It’s been the story of the Games.
And still, the organisers or the Olympics Minister assure us that they are ‘on budget’ — much as Greece likes to assure us that it is not bust.
But, this week, some inescapable truth broke through the cloud of obfuscation. Those pesky accountants at the National Audit Office (NAO) are just refusing to get with the Olympic spirit.
Instead, in their latest Olympic Progress report, they warn that ‘more money will be needed unless there is rigorous action to control costs’.
Deluded
Ken Livingstone admitted the London bid had been a ‘con trick’ to siphon off government money into the East End
As things stand, with eight months to go, the contingency fund for all unexpected eventualities — floods, strikes, terrorism, bird flu — stands at £36 million. I suppose it might cover the unpaid minibar bills once the International Olympic Committee has moved on.
But does anyone think that will be enough?
If they can get the security guards wrong to the tune of £271 million this week, what do you think they might come up with next week?
The list of false promises goes right back to 2005 when the then London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Sebastian Coe and former Olympics Minister Tessa Jowell promised us the Games would cost an eye-watering £2.4 billion.
Then it doubled. Then it trebled. By 2007, it had hit £9.3 billion. That’s still the figure, so we are told by the organisers.
But listen to the ex-organisers.
First, there was the extraordinary admission from Jack Lemley, the former chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority (the bit that builds the stadiums). He resigned in 2006, conceding that the final bill could hit £20 billion.
Two years later, Ken Livingstone admitted the London bid had been a ‘con trick’ to siphon off government money into the East End.
Then there were the deluded promises that a victorious Olympic bid would somehow translate into a million new people playing some sort of sport. This week’s NAO report gives the true figure — 108,600.
We have had no such trouble boosting our obesity rates, however. But what did we expect? Was the bid team being incredibly naive or just deceitful?
Meanwhile, the European Tour Operators Association has reported that bookings for London during the Olympics have fallen off a cliff. They are 90 per cent down. At least London’s rivals are happy, proving there is no place for sentimentality in the cut-throat world of flogging bed space.
VisitScotland, for example, have just declared the London reservation slump as a ‘fantastic opportunity’, adding: ‘We will be looking to tactically target those who are looking to get away.’ And who can blame them?
The Orbit tower under construction at the Olympic stadium – but it is the cost of the games that have gone into orbit
Now, I know we should all be ‘getting right behind the Games’ and being a little more patriotic. But as someone who has been grumbling about the megalomania of the Olympic movement since long before London was awarded these Games, I happily plead guilty to being a party pooper.
But we might, at least, have been told the truth.
Instead, we have been treated like imbeciles by those who believe they have a divine right to squander other people’s money in the name of sport. It is also our misfortune that we should have signed up to this in times of plenty and are still obliged to deliver the same star-spangled show during a vicious recession that is teetering on becoming a slump.
But then normal rules do not apply when it comes to the Olympics.
Just two years ago, LOCOG, was offered a bargain — a 10,000-seat stadium just five minutes walk from the Olympic Park. Leyton Orient Football Club would not be using their ground during Olympic fortnight. Club chairman Barry Hearn was offering it to Lord Coe’s lot for absolutely nothing.
It might save, say, the cost of building a £20 million hockey stadium.
The response? No thanks. As far as LOCOG was concerned, it had promised London and the International Olympic Committee a brand new shiny hockey stadium. And that was what it was going to deliver.
Legacy
It was all part of the great Olympic ‘legacy’ — regardless of the demand for hockey stadiums in Newham, East London.
It is far too late to change much about these Games, let alone give them back to Beijing.
So let us make them work. But that does not mean we have to carry on treating them as a special case, shovelling good money after bad.
And if you haven’t got a ticket, don’t worry. There’s a much better — and impeccably patriotic — event happening seven weeks earlier. And it’s free. Enjoy the Queen’s magnificent Diamond Jubilee. And then head for Scotland.
London rail staff will be paid an extra £650 to work during 2012 Olympics
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:02 PM on 2nd December 2011
Hundreds of railway workers will receive bonuses of up to £1,000 just for doing their job during the Olympics.
Conductors, ticket office staff and maintenance workers on the London Overground network will pocket at least £650 for turning up to work.
They will be able to earn hundreds of pounds more if they take on extra shifts and overtime, under a deal signed with the militant RMT union.
Victory: The deal is one of the best so far for employees working during the Olympic Games and beats the £500 bonuses for Network Rail staff
Last night MPs accused ‘bullying’ unions of holding the transport system to ransom. The extraordinary deal includes a 25 per cent increase in pay for the duration of the Olympics and Paralympics.
In return, staff have agreed to work flexible hours. The full cost of the payout, which will benefit more than 500 staff, will be at least £350,000 and perhaps as much as half a million pounds.
Pleased: Union leader Bob Crow, said the ‘deal recognises the value placed on transport workers in delivering an effective Olympics’
It comes two months after similarly generous deals were reached for Network Rail staff and Tube drivers. Many thousands of other Underground staff have still not reached a deal.
Dominic Raab, the Tory MP for Esher and Walton who campaigns for tougher anti-strike laws, said: ‘Once again, through brinkmanship and bullying, the head of the RMT has held London to ransom.’
Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford, said: ‘We have spent enough money on the Olympics as it is, so I do not agree with spending any more money unnecessarily. The unions need to get back in their box: the public has had enough of all their demands, causing strikes, getting special treatment.’
The generous deal was announced yesterday by Bob Crow, the RMT’s general secretary.
He said: ‘This deal recognises the value placed on transport workers in delivering an effective Olympics and is a good deal for RMT members, the travelling public and Olympic visitors alike.
‘It’s a common sense approach in planning ahead for the Games. It means that our members will get a minimum additional payment of £650 with the scope for more.’
Mr Crow praised RMT representatives for managing to secure the agreement with the train operating company, London Overground Rail Operations Ltd.
‘This agreement quite rightly recognises and rewards the additional efforts and flexibility required of RMT members during the Olympics to benefit passengers on London Overground routes serving the key hub at Stratford,’ he said.
Action: Leader of Unite union Len McCluskey warned Wednesday’s strikes could roll on into next year and clash with the Olympics
‘The agreement shows the importance of the workforce having a skilled and experienced trade union on their side in negotiating the best deal possible to the mutual benefit of everyone involved.’
The £650-plus payments will go to more than 500 station, conductor, train care, fleet maintenance and revenue staff. They will get an ‘enhancement rate’ of 25 per cent – meaning their pay is increased by a quarter for shifts worked during the Games. Union sources said the bonus could reach £1,000 for some, although actual figures will not be available until rotas are worked out.
London Underground drivers will get a minimum payment of £500, although this could increase to £1,200 with overtime added in.
Network Rail staff, who work on lines not covered by the London Overground, will get a similar £500 minimum amount.
Details of the latest deal come just days after public sector workers staged a nationwide strike over plans to cut gold-plated pensions, which saw thousands of schools closed and NHS operations cancelled.
The Olympics agreement does not have a no-strike clause – but last night the TaxPayers’ Alliance described the payment as a ‘bribe’ to persuade rail workers not to take industrial action.
Chief executive Matthew Elliott said: ‘It’s shocking that unions are getting what looks like a bribe not to cause trouble during the Olympics.
‘This bonus is an insult to the millions of commuters who have dealt with the misery of strikes over the years. Well-paid drivers have already had an inflation-busting pay rise this year, and it is incredible some of them are getting a whopping great bonus on top of that just for working during a busy period.’
Train drivers on the London Overground earn a basic salary of £43,554.
