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Tube strikes on the eve of Mayor vote
Dick Murray, Transport Editor18.04.08
Union bosses today ordered a 48-hour Tube strike, days before the elections for London mayor.
The action will be a major embarrassment to Ken Livingstone and will cripple a big part of the network.
The stoppages by the RMT union will begin at 10.30am on Monday 28 April and disrupt services for three days. Tubes will start running again on the morning of 30 April, the day before the elections.
Thousands of commuters will be hit, with the Circle, District and Metropolitan lines badly affected along with Bakerloo, Central and Victoria services.
RMT bosses ordered the action in a continuing row over staff working for failed maintenance company Metronet.
Leader Bob Crow said the union had failed to win "unequivocal written guarantees on outsourcing, pensions and travel facilities" despite weeks of "detailed talks and positive discussions with the Mayor".
Last August the union announced two 72-hour strikes in the same dispute. A 24-hour stoppage took place then the remainder were suspended. Industry sources condemned the latest action as a "blatant attempt" to embarrass Mr Livingstone.
A London Underground spokesman said: "The RMT has been given guarantees that no staff will lose jobs, pensions or be transferred as a result of Metronet's collapse. Indeed, the vast majority of Metronet employees already enjoy these benefits."
A senior LU source added that the two sides were still talking.
The union said staff had voted by a margin of four to one to strike - 2,500 were eligible to take part in the ballot.
Mr Crow said: " We have been adamant throughout this sorry affair that our members will not be made to pay for the collapse of the public-private partnership."
Metronet went bust last year with debts of £2 billion and is in administration. Its contracts will be taken over by Transport for London this summer.
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Reader views (4)
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In the words of Lenin, "Whom does this benefit?" Certainly not Ken; the winner is Boris, who can capitalise on the chaos, and he has even less inclination to listen to the unions than Ken does. The RMT are acting very, very strangely.
- Christian, West Sussex
Brilliant! So Ken will obviously buckle days before the election to win votes and even if he loses the new Mayor is faced with a fait d-accompli!
- Mark, London
What a lovely person Adam sounds like. With reference to those miners who 'we gave it to' it might be worth it for him to visit some of those communities to whom 'we gave it to', many of which are still decimated. There are plenty of opportunities for work in places such as London, but I drive daily through one small community in Scotland which once had mines and that community has nothing else - it is neither vibrant, nor a hive of activity. It is a shell. Those people to whom 'we gave it to' were not just striking for their jobs, they were striking for their communities. Whether you agree or not with some of their tactics, Adam needs to not speak from his East London ivory tower and his ignorance of the impact on communities of the decimation of the mining industry. It is both insulting and upsetting.
- Brian Capaloff, Falkirk, Scotland (Formerly London)
