London Overground Demonstration outside City Hall - Wednesday 20th November 9am

Circular No: NP/244/19

TO ALL BRANCHES & REGIONAL COUNCILS.

8th November 2019

Dear Colleagues

LONDON OVERGROUND DEMONSTRATION OUTSIDE CITY HALL – WEDNESDAY 20TH NOVEMBER 9AM

Last year, London Overground, which is owned by the German State Railway, proposed to close 51 ticket offices across the network.

London Overground claimed that this would improve the service. However, the RMT firmly believed the closures would be detrimental to passengers, risking station safety, security and accessibility and impeding the range of tickets and services available.

Despite the Mayor’s announcement in April 2019, that the ticket offices would remain open, London Overground is now planning to cut ticket office hours at 45 stations across the network and permanently close the ticket office at three stations. In many cases the ticket offices will be open just 2.5 hours in the morning Monday – Friday. Many ticket offices are facing cuts of over 80% compared to their current hours.

I wrote to the Mayor of London calling on him to urgently use his powers to halt the proposed closures and it was very disappointing that his response made no commitment to halt these damaging cuts and closures.

RMT branches, reps and activists have already taken part in action days – distributing leaflets and postcards to passengers and are now encouraged to attend a public demonstration, to make a clear and visible statement to the Mayor that these cuts cannot be allowed to go ahead.

The demonstration is taking place at 9am on Wednesday 20th November outside City Hall, SE1 2AA, London. The Mayor will be Chairing a TfL Board Meeting at City Hall at 10am so it is important to make this demonstration as visible as possible.
RMT branches are also encouraged to publicise the cuts to local trades councils, their local Labour Party and pensioner, disability and passenger groups.

Further details of the campaign are available on the RMT website here - https://www.rmt.org.uk/campaigns/rail/save-london-overground-ticket-offices/

The latest figures show that there has been a pronounced increase in violence and assaults against station staff – this shows that cuts to station staffing put workers at risk. It is vital that we send a clear message to the Mayor, TfL and London Overground that these proposed cuts are a risk to the safety of staff and the travelling public.

Please do all you can to support this important demonstration.
Yours sincerely

Mick Cash
General Secretary