Comment: This strike will backfire on Bob

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The RMT union's vote for a 72-hour Tube strike next week is ostensibly about pay - but it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this is at heart a deliberate challenge to the new Mayor, Boris Johnson. The union says members working for maintenance contractor Tube Lines are being offered an inferior deal on pay, pensions and conditions than those who work for London Underground through Metronet. The pay differences involved are tiny. Such disputes are usually resolved without industrial action. This time, however, RMT chief Bob Crow may be planning a real showdown.

The real issue is Mr Johnson's election promise to push for a no-strike agreement on the Tube. Such a pledge, especially coming from a Conservative mayor, is a direct challenge to the Left-wing trade union. Mr Johnson's predecessor, Ken Livingstone, was a tough negotiator: he managed to agree threeyear pay deals, although LU was still forced to give way to the unions on several occasions. But the new Mayor is an unknown quantity to the union bosses, and they are now testing him.

Most Londoners will take a dim view of such political posturing. These Tube workers are already well paid. They should be warned: the spectacle of them putting millions of Londoners and visitors to huge inconvenience, over four days, will merely strengthen the Mayor's case for taking tougher action against the unions - and public support for his stance.

A full-scale confrontation over a no-strike deal would cause massive disruption. But all efforts so far to stop the Tube unions disrupting London's life - or holding us to ransom - have failed. If the RMT strike next week, many Londoners may conclude that a bigger dispute is a price worth paying for an end to such Seventies-style class politics.