Morning:
8°c
Tube chiefs to axe 1,000 staff
Dick Murray and Simon English29 Jan 2009
LONDON Underground is to axe 1,000 jobs because of the recession.
Hundreds more will be lost at Transport for London, the Tube's parent organisation. Sources said up to 1,000 could also go there.
Union leaders were told of the job losses at a crisis meeting with London Underground today and immediately warned that services would be hit.
The cuts came as hundreds more jobs were cut across London and Britain:
● Legal firm Linklaters said it was axing up to 250 staff, including 120 lawyers.
● Energy provider e.on is shedding 450 staff across the country.
● Up to 1,000 British jobs were put at risk as part of global cuts by drug giant Astra Zeneca, while industrial group Cookson cut 1,250.
● Zavvi, the collapsed music store chain, shut another 15 shops at a cost of 295 jobs.
The carnage came as Chancellor Alistair Darling warned: "As we get through this, it is important to know that from here, in early January, we are going to see a lot of downsides."
Tube staff were told that the first jobs will go in April after a 90-day consultation period. Jobs will go in finance, IT, human resources, procurement, legal and administration as part of an attempt to save £2.4 billion in the next 18 months. The Tube has 20,000 staff - swollen by 7,000 from failed maintenance giant Metronet. There are another 28,000 staff working for TfL. The axe will fall first on non-permanent and contract staff.
A spokesman stressed that front-line staff- train drivers, station staff, engineers and maintenance workers - would not be affected. But Gerry Doherty, leader of the TSSA union, said the job losses were "very bad news for Londoners" and added: "There is no way that cuts of this size will not hit services."
The growing scale of job losses was underlined by the shock move by the world's second largest law firm, Linklaters, to axe scores of lawyers from its 2,320 staff. Some of its more than 500 partners will also go.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister unveiled plans to build houses and boost jobs today as he declared that Britain would get through the recession if it "unites as a nation".
Gordon Brown said that past restrictions on council home building would be lifted to give much-needed work to carpenters, bricklayers and others.
Speaking after world economists warned Britain was likely to suffer worst among rich nations from the global slump, Mr Brown admitted that "this will undoubtedly be a difficult year" but pointed out that the US had been in recession since December 2007, and Europe and Japan since last summer.
Reader views (20)
Message to AZAM.
Train drivers do not all get £50k a year and trains are controlled by computers. As part of a safety requirement a driver must stay to override any controls should anything malfunction. I am sure the trains are occupied by hundreds of people and the last thing you want is any incidences where people may be hurt. Safety has always been a prime concern on the Underground.
- Aman, London, 31/01/2009 14:29
Report abuse
As an employee of LU, I can tell you that of course as with any large company there are people who drag their feet at work and hardly do anything.
I can also say the volume of traffic on the tube is steadily rising so as well as bringing in more revenue through incremental fare increases, additional revenue is coming in as people turn to public transport. Every day at work it is incredibly busy. I think management at Broadway obviously have had this up their sleeves a while and dropped it as private sector companies do the same.
- Jim, London, 30/01/2009 11:21
Report abuse
£50,000 for a tube and train driver to move 1 lever? I'd rather they have them modernised and driverless and halve the fares for passengers too! It's 2009, do we really need rail drivers nowadays?
- Azam, London, 30/01/2009 09:49
Report abuse
interesting that so many people are commenting on this from nowhere near London, I especially chuckled at the comment from southwest France!
- Peter, London, 30/01/2009 09:38
Report abuse
Finally, the remaining staff will have to work for their gold plated guranteed pensions, like the rest of the country. The public sector is too overstaffed, so they seems to loiter, chat and take sickies. Justice finally!
- A Smith, London, 30/01/2009 09:33
Report abuse
Why not just sack the whole 1000 from TfL instead? All TfK's ever done is come up with a hundred ways of slowing traffic in London .....
- Marianne, SW France, 30/01/2009 05:54
Report abuse
"BECAUSE OF THE RECESSION" ? These people are plainly Crooks. The Underground business is still raking in money. Some of their costs will be going down, not up. They should be either cutting fares, or putting wages up. Maybe both.
What a bunch of thieves.
- Alex Mckenna, Manchester, 29/01/2009 21:51
Report abuse
London Underground is part of TfL so all tube staff are included in the 28000 number. The way the article is written makes it seem like they are talking about 48,000 people hmm, confusing.....
- Becky, London N7, 29/01/2009 21:07
Report abuse
The people running the tube are literally running it to the ground. The people at the top are cutting jobs from services actually used by Londoners while pouring billions into Crossrail - a rail line that benefits the City and developers not Londoners. The Union leaders were stupid to support Crossrail they have let London and real workers down. Sack all Tube bosses for inefficiency, failure and poor management skills and then we can afford a better tube and better paid staff. Union leaders can join in being sacked.
- Val Keller, London UK, 29/01/2009 19:08
Report abuse
Please plase please can they axe the ghastly automated woman who does the new announcements on the Jubilee & Northern line!!! In fact just switch off all the announcements completely and just tell us when there are problems. That should save them a bit of money, and make commuting less of a misery for all of us.
- Tony, London nw2, 29/01/2009 18:38
Report abuse
28000 staff at tfl seems a hell of a lot of people, do they really need that many?
20000 on the actual network yes i can understand.
- Staker, London, 29/01/2009 18:14
Report abuse
Your article states there are 28,000 people working for TfL, and 20,000 at the Tube. This is incorrect. There is 28,000 in TfL as a whole, of which 20,000 work for the Tube.
- Sam, London, England, 29/01/2009 17:35
Report abuse
Paul, London. I dont know which company you work in but in most companies HR employ people and run training courses, IT staff do new projects that improve internal systems, make them more efficient etc. Finance people control budgets for these. In a recession these 'nice to haves' are the things that get cut. It doesnt mean these people arent required it just means there is no expansion or improvement in the companies infrastructure and so it remains static and gets less competitive compared to other companies that are investing in improvements.
- Neil, london, 29/01/2009 17:14
Report abuse
Oh joy I just love the seventies. Now we will have rail strikes et al and a vote of no confidence in the Government - PLEASE
- Bj, London, 29/01/2009 17:13
Report abuse
I give it twenty four hours before Bob Crow has them all out on strike demading reduced hours and a 6% pay rise.
Which he'll probably get.
- Dave, Dalston, London, 29/01/2009 17:12
Report abuse
It is very strange since the tube is jam packed everyday as usual so why do they have to sack staff? And if they are over staff issue why do they hire so many in the first instance?
- Johnny, London, 29/01/2009 17:00
Report abuse
If they can make these job cuts in finance HR etc without cutting down on front line staff, what were these people employed for in the first place?
- Paul, London,UK, 29/01/2009 16:33
Report abuse
Bob Crow must be rubbing his hands with glee at this announcement. I give it less than 48 hours before he's trying to call for an all out strike. After all, he seems to think he and his 'members' are exempt from the stress and everyday life experiences of the rest of the country.
- Geraldine, London, 29/01/2009 16:28
Report abuse
Well as long as Boris freezes his share of council tax, who cares if it runs the Tube into the ground? It's not like people actually need to use public transport to make a living is it? Why do we have an incompetent Mayor unable to see the bigger picture of his headline grabbing voting scams?
- Darren, London, 29/01/2009 16:20
Report abuse
How long before Bob Crow spouts his usual rubbish?
This does seem odd as I have not noticed any recent reductions in passenger use on the tube, so may be the recession is just being used as an excuse.
- Tom, Watford (UK), 29/01/2009 15:48
Report abuse
