Read it and bin it

Posted by Now London on Feb 28, 2012 in Environment, News, Transport | 0 comments

A new advertising campaign by LU is encouraging customers to take their newspapers and litter with them or put their rubbish in a bin so it can be recycled. Posters have already started appearing at Tube stations explaining that “What doesn’t go in the bin causes delays on the track”.

Coffee cups, cans of drink, bottles, fast food packaging, as well as newspapers, can get stuck in train doors or fall on the track, which can result in services being delayed or suspended. Disposing of rubbish in an appropriate way can help make the Tube more reliable. 

Passengers often do not see newspapers as litter and leave them on trains or platforms for other people to read. These items can sometimes blow onto the track and cause signal failures or create an obstruction by getting jammed in track and signalling equipment. Rubbish left on stairs, lifts and at the top of escalators can cause slip hazards or become lodged in machinery under the escalator. By taking their litter with them customers can help LU cut delays.

Cleaning teams across London Underground are carefully deployed at times and places when litter builds up the most on the network, but passengers can also help keep stations clean making the Tube more pleasant for everybody. 

Gareth Powell, Director of Strategy and Service Development for London Underground, said: “Customers don’t always think of newspapers as rubbish when they are on a train or at a station. Leaving coffee cups, fast food packaging or newspapers on trains can lead to these items getting stuck in doors or falling on the track. By taking their litter with them or putting it in the bin passengers can help us run the Tube more smoothly and improve reliability.

“This new litter campaign is asking people to dispose of their rubbish in a bin so it can be recycled, minimising delays for the millions of people that use the Tube a day.  This will also make the Tube cleaner and more pleasant for everybody.”

In 2011, 97 newspapers, 76 drinks cans and bottles, 20 fast food items and 61 other objects were caught in train doors causing delays to services. In total there were 327 litter related incidents which caused disruption on the network last year.

This new advertising campaign will include up to 500 posters at stations and on trains asking customers to take their rubbish with them. The advertising slogans in the posters or newspaper adverts will be:

“This advert is rubbish”

“What doesn’t go in the bin causes delays on the track”

“The newspaper you are reading is rubbish”

“What doesn’t go in the bin causes delays on the network”

Last year LU increased the number of bins by twenty-five per cent which means there is now access to a bin on any journey on the Tube. Customers can use the 1,600 plus bins that are in, or within walking distance of 270 Tube stations.

In the coming months LU will also be installing further bins at stations to make it even easier for customers to dispose of their litter for recycling.  LU now recycles over two thirds of the rubbish left on the Tube network.

This supports the Mayor of London’s ambition to make the capital a cleaner, safer and greener place for the 2012 Games and beyond. The Mayor is working to encourage Londoners to take responsibility for the cleanliness of their environment, for example through the Capital Clean-up campaign, which has led to more than 1,000 litter picks, clean-up events and graffiti removals over the past five years.

Barclays tax could fund proper jobs for exploited youth says PCS

Posted by Now London on Feb 28, 2012 in News, Trade Unions | 0 comments

The £500 million in avoided tax that a high street bank will now have to pay could fund full-time jobs above the living wage for all the young people who have been working for free under a controversial government scheme, the Public and Commercial Services union says.

Divided between the 34,000 16 to 24-year-olds who have been put onto the government’s work experience programme, the money could pay salaries of GBP 14,706 a year, or GBP 8.08 an hour for a 35-hour week.

The UK national living wage – paid by an increasing number of employers – is GBP 7.20 an hour, and GBP 8.30 in London.

A tax loophole that allowed Barclays to avoid paying GBP 500 million in corporation tax has been closed by HM Revenue and Customs.

The union points out that this is a "drop in the ocean" compared to more than GBP 120 billion in tax revenue that is avoided, evaded or uncollected every year.

While genuine work experience and training can have a valid role in helping people find a career they want to pursue, the union says the government is exploiting young people at a time of high and rising unemployment and seeking to blame them for being out of work.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "This is a drop in the ocean compared to the tens of billions lost to our public finances because mainly wealthy individuals and organisations do not pay all they should in tax.

"With more than one million young people out of work, the government urgently needs to start chasing the fat-cat tax dodgers and creating long-term paid jobs that get people into work and off benefits, instead of offering them up to companies to work for free."

Mayor criticized for urging hacking police to “move on”

Posted by Now London on Feb 28, 2012 in Crime, News, Phone Hacking | 0 comments

Joanne McCartney, Labour’s policing lead on the London Assembly, has this morning written to the Metropolitan Police commissioner seeking assurances that the police will continue to investigate phone hacking properly after Boris Johnson suggested the case was taking up too much police time and energy.

Boris Johnson, whose office now oversees the work of the Metropolitan Police, said too many officers are "tying up their time" on phone hacking and that he wants "the caravan to move one". Speaking to ITV’s The Agenda programme last night, the Mayor said: "Let’s knock it on the head as fast as we can."

In the past the Mayor has described the phone hacking allegations as:

• "a load of codswallop cooked up by the Labour Party"
• "patently politically motivated"
• "a politically motivated put up job"
• "completely spurious and political"
• "a song and dance about nothing"
• "whipped up by the Guardian and the Labour Party."

Joanne McCartney, Labour’s policing lead on the London Assembly Labour group, said: "It looks like the latest attempt by Boris Johnson to interfere politically in the phone hacking investigations he said from the start were codswallop. This might be okay for other politicians who are close to News International and want to protect their friends, but the Mayor is now in charge of the police force leading this case and when he comes out with this kind of stuff during live investigations he risks accusations of political interference. He’s got form on this of course."

The Mayor said this weekend that News International’s new Sun on Sunday title was "a great cheerleader for modern Britain."

RMT ballots for action on leave ban during Olympics

Posted by Now London on Feb 28, 2012 in News, Trade Unions | 0 comments

Transport Union RMT confirmed today that it is to ballot for industrial action on TFL over a ban on staff leave for the duration of the Olympics and has also declared a formal dispute with London Underground over a failure to reach an agreement on Olympics recognition and reward payments for all LU staff.

RMT has told TFL that it is appalled that the employer intends to severely restrict annual leave over the Olympic period, including banning annual leave during the Games altogether in at least one department. The union says that the plan will make life impossible for many staff, for example those with school-age children. RMT is also similarly appalled at TfL’s totally inadequate financial offer to our members, consisting solely of a £15 payment if a shift is changed.

As a result, RMT has no option but to organise a ballot for industrial action of all members in departments of TfL for strike action and for action short of strike.

RMT’s executive has also considered again the lack of progress from London Underground in reaching an acceptable agreement with the union over the Olympics recognition and reward issue and has agreed to formally declare a dispute with London Underground on this matter.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: “RMT reiterates our stance that all grades of transport employees are entitled to a decent financial reward for their efforts transporting huge numbers of passengers during the Olympics and are entitled to take leave during the summer. Working conditions and important agreements should not and need not be attacked in order to facilitate Olympic running.”

Civil servants start voting in new pensions ballot

Posted by Now London on Feb 28, 2012 in Civil Service, News, Trade Unions | 0 comments

More than 250,000 members of the Public and Commercial Services union in the civil and public services have started voting in a consultation over the next steps in the fight against the government’s cuts to pensions.

They will be asked two questions: do they reject the government’s latest pensions offer; and do they support an ongoing joint union campaign for fair pensions for all.

Voters have until Friday 16 March to have their say – either by post, online or by phone – and the results will be considered at a special meeting of the union’s elected national executive on 19 March.

The union is currently talking to other unions with members across three public sector pension schemes – civil service, education and health – with a view to taking co-ordinated industrial action on 28 March and beyond, as well as other joint campaigning activity.

The union’s NEC has unanimously rejected the government’s latest offer, as it would force public servants to work up to eight years longer for a worse pension in retirement, and to pay more in contributions with the money going straight to the Treasury to pay off a budget deficit caused by the failures of bankers and successive governments.

The government’s proposals are designed to make it easier to privatise more of our public services, the union says – a point acknowledged by Treasury minister Danny Alexander when he told the Commons in December the plans would make pensions "substantially more affordable to alternative providers".

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "We’re asking people to send a clear message that they refuse to be bullied into paying more and working longer for less, simply to pay off debts caused by the failures of bankers and politicians.

"While we will continue to meet government ministers, until they start negotiating on these key issues we will continue to plan for widespread, co-ordinated industrial action across the public sector."