Training | 2010.08.25
London Underground strike dates set
Rolling walkout by tube drivers, engineers and station staff over 800 job losses start on 6 September
Thousands of London Underground workers are to stage a series of strikes from next month in a row over jobsthat threatens travel disruption for passengers and to cost the economy millions of pounds, it was announced today.
Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association will walk out for 24 hours from 5pm on 6 September, the day the House of Commons resumes after the summer recess.
Maintenance and engineering staff will be involved in the first stoppage, with similar action planned at the same time on 3 October, 2 November and 28 November.
Other workers, including tube drivers, signallers and station staff, will strike for 24 hours from 9pm on 6 September followed by walkouts at the same time on the same dates as engineers.
The unions said up to 10,000 workers will be involved in the action, which will include an indefinite overtime ban from 6 September.
The move follows votes in favour of strikes by both unions over plans to cut 800 jobs among station staff.
The RMT general secretary, Bob Crow, said: "London Underground and mayor Boris Johnson must understand that the cuts they want to impose are unacceptable to our members and will undermine safety and service for the travelling public.
"The mayor was elected on a promise of maintaining safe staffing levels and he is doing the opposite – planning to leave stations and platforms dangerously understaffed and threatening to turn the network into a muggers\' paradise.
"We have already had potential disasters narrowly averted, with fires at Euston and Oxford Circus and a runaway train on the Northern line, and Boris Johnson\'s planned cuts would deal a potentially fatal blow to the ability to deal with emergencies."
The TSSA general secretary, Gerry Doherty, said: "Boris Johnson may be prepared to go into the Olympic games with a second-class tube service when the eyes of the world will be on the capital – we are not.
"We will defend a vital public service on which millions of people depend every day of their working lives. We will not see jobs and services sacrificed to pay for the sins of the City of London and Wall Street."
Colin Stanbridge, the chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce, said each day the underground was closed would cost London\'s economy £48m and hamper recovery from recession.
Howard Collins, LU\'s chief operating officer, said: "It is simply not possible to go on with a situation where some ticket offices sell fewer than 10 tickets an hour. It is clear that passengers can be better served by getting staff out from behind the windows of underused ticket offices.
"We need to change, but we will do so without compromising safety, without compulsory redundancies, and in a way that means all stations will continue to be staffed at all times and all stations with a ticket office will continue to have one.
"The weak mandate for strike action, which saw only around 35% of TSSA members and less than a third of RMT members voting for a walkout, should resonate with the unions\' leadership.
"These threatened strikes are in nobody\'s interest, and should not go ahead."
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/aug/25/london-underground-strike-dates
