Strike to halt entire Tube for 48 hours

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The RMT said the strike would run from 7pm on Tuesday 9 June. It refused to rule out further stoppages in the escalating row over job cuts, pay and working conditions.

The walkouts by thousands of members of the RMT union, including train drivers, station staff and engineers, will bring the network, used by 3.5 million passengers a day, to a halt.

Tube bosses immediately condemned the action as "totally unnecessary" and called on the union to return to talks.

RMT Tube members voted by 2,810 in favour of a strike with 488 against. Transport for London members voted by 75 in favour of a strike with 15 against. Although the union, the Tube's largest, has a mandate for strikes — likely to be
a series of discontinuous 24-hour stoppages — the turnout was low among the 10,000 who could have voted.

The vote is a test of authority for Mayor Boris Johnson, who is facing his biggest industrial unrest since election. He has ordered 1,000 Tube jobs to be axed in a cost-cutting programme to save £2.4 billion. Hundreds more are to go at TfL, but senior sources have told the Standard
losses could be 3,000.

RMT leader Bob Crow declared the result an "overwhelming mandate" for strike action. He accused management of "deliberately provoking"
the dispute by its refusal to rule out compulsory job losses, implementing a pay freeze and failing to do anything over the union's accusations of bullying by management.

TfL confirmed most of the Tube job cuts were as a result of having to take over the 7,000 staff of Metronet, the privatesector maintenance giant,
which went bust last year.

It said cuts would be from "backroom positions" rather than train drivers or platform staff. On pay, TfL said: "We believe that staff, including
those at LU, have good pay and conditions."

Howard Collins, the Tube's chief operating officer, urged union bosses to "get back" to
the negotiating table. He accused the union of
putting in a "wildly unrealistic" demand of a five per cent pay increase for fewer hours "in the middle of a recession". On jobs, Mr Collins said the union "knows full well" that no frontline staff would go.