'RMT leaders held a gun to our heads'

A reliable, modern transport system is a prerequisite for continuing success - and the Tube is at the heart of that.

The hard work and commitment of the 20,000 Tube staff who help 3.5 million passengers get to work each day is not in doubt.

They enjoy good pay and conditions, and rightly so.

They do a responsible job, often under difficult conditions caused by historic under-investment.

As their response to the terrorist atrocities of July 2005 amply demonstrated, the overwhelming majority of our people have only one thing in mind - keeping London moving.

Regrettably, the leadership of one of our unions, the RMT, has the opposite in mind.

Unless there is an astonishing change of heart today, the leadership of the RMT will cause massive disruption to London, including wrecking England's World Cup qualifier against Andorra at Wembley, by staging a 48-hour strike starting at 7pm this evening.

When all of our thoughts ought to be concentrated on helping Londoners and businesses work through recession, all the RMT leadership can think about is using the threat of London-wide strike action to get two of its members, sacked for serious disciplinary offences, reinstated.

We had made progress with them and the other three trades unions until late yesterday, through shortening our five-year pay offer to two years, promising to deal with the Olympics separately, and further reassurances that we will continue to abide by all existing agreements on redundancies.

We recognise how important this is as we have a thousand surplus back office jobs, as a result of the inefficiencies of Metronet.

Then a gun was held to our heads, by a demand that said "we'll call off the strike, if you reinstate our two sacked members".

At a time when modernisation is the name of the game, the RMT leadership is intent on holding things back.

We will not, of course, let the RMT's propensity to ballot and strike rather than talk stand in the way.

We are taking a range of steps - from extra buses, boats and cycling facilities through to making Oyster pay-as-you-go cards valid on national rail - to help keep London moving over the next 48 hours.

The fact is that the RMT leadership managed to gain the support of only 14 per cent of the Tube's workforce for industrial action.

The other three trades unions are not in dispute.

The ballot was premature, and the strike has no moral basis to proceed.

With a two-year pay offer and assurances on redundancy on the table, Tube staff have every reason to work normally over the next two days, and I hope they do.

That the RMT should ask their members to suffer two days' loss of pay and bring chaos on Londoners for no good reason is deplorable.

That it gets in the way of both the modernisation of the world's oldest and finest Tube, and the recovery of London's economy, is shameful.

And, if it affects the amount of money we have to invest in the Tube, it's catastrophic.