Tonight:
9°c
The day Boris Johnson went strikebusting
Stephen Robinson11.06.09
As the RMT threatened to bring London to a halt, Stephen Robinson spent 24 hours with a Mayor intent on keeping the capital moving...
By common consent, Boris Johnson botched the first weather emergency of his mayoralty when the entire bus system, and much of the Tube network, was shut down by a snow shower.
Sceptics who wondered whether an old Etonian journalist was up to running the world's most daunting metropolis appeared vindicated when it emerged that the capital's main arterial routes had not been gritted in advance of a widely forecast snow fall, and the buses could not get out of the depots.
This week, Bob Crow ordered members of the RMT out on a 48-hour strike, setting the biggest challenge of Johnson's regime. Stephen Robinson got on his bike to see how the mayor rose to the challenge ...
Tuesday, 19.45
If you want to see the Mayor at the moment the Tube shuts down, get to Walthamstow, his staff say.
At first, I assume that in the manner of a Cold War prime minister, the Mayor is moving his key personnel to a safe location to oversee the crisis from a secure situation room, but it turns out Boris is intent on attending a previously arranged Mayor's Question Time with “ordinary Londoners” about the Olympics.
Boris's attitude to the strike is a gritty Blitz-style business-as-usual, stay-at-your-station response, even if your station happens to be closed due to industrial action.
The roads are becoming grid-locked and drivers' tempers' are fraying.
Ken Livingstone is on the radio, telling anyone who will listen that in his day, he'd have had the RMT round for beer and sandwiches and saved Londoners from 48 hours of hell.
Boris hits back, saying this is a “demented” strike and that there can be no concessions to the hard men of the RMT at the wrong end of the barrel of their gun.
Resolution seems within reach but the RMT allegedly raised two unrelated disciplinary matters just as the two sides seem to be finding agreement on pay and conditions.
Tuesday 19.00
Walthamstow municipal headquarters is a weird neo-fascist confection, with plazas and a central fountain so oppressively 1930s that you expect Mussolini to be addressing the locals from below the columned façade on the Abyssinian question.
At the precise moment London's Tube system falls silent, there is visible consternation among the Mayors' aides.
This is because Boris arrives, on his bicycle, direct from City Hall, bang on time.
This is regarded as one of the most astonishing developments of his mayoralty.
Boris looks as though he can't believe it himself.
He insists the meeting begins promptly at the appointed hour, partly so he can go on stage and announce that he has beaten the strike by sensibly using his bicycle, while Lord Coe, “the fastest man on earth”, is stuck in traffic somewhere around Canary Wharf.
“I'm an Olympo-maniac” he tells the residents of east London, adding that it will “deliver 2,800 new homes for Londoners”.
It is odd to hear Boris talking like a New Labour minister on the Today programme but these are unusual times.
Wednesday 06.15, Islington
Nothing stirs outside the Mayor's Islington home, just joggers and the sound of the odd QC making toast in the Georgian terraces, as Londoners trudge to work on foot or bicycle, or wedged into the armpits of fellow commuters in overcrowded buses.
The City Hall staff say Boris will be leaving to take control of the transport crisis at 6.30 sharp, and 55 minutes later, he emerges through his front door, in his helmet. “OK, we'll have to leg it,” he announces.
I am a cyclist only in the strictly limited sense that I happen to own a bicycle, a clunking Raleigh which I very occasionally pedal around Regent's Park.
Boris is a proper cyclist, with an aerodynamic machine with thin racing tyres.
He cycles as he once played rugger for Balliol's First XV at Oxford — head tucked into his shoulders, pointed purposefully into the fray.
The last time I interviewed him he was so hungover that he could barely speak and he suggested instead that we played a game of table tennis — or “pingers” as he called it — in his Mayor's office, and I could see he really wanted to win.
No quarter will be offered as we head off towards the City as he dodges buses and lorries, and the occasional red light.
Boris has the sort of general popular appeal that people feel they have to shout something at him as soon as they recognise the blond mop.
He is particularly popular with white van drivers, who invariably holler something like “Go for it Boris”; until Ken Livingstone develops a strategy to win back White Van Man from Boris, his ambitions to return to City Hall will come to nothing.
While we are still in Islington, a pedestrian shouts out as we peddle furiously past: “I'm teaching classics at Eton next year.” Boris seems to recognise him. “Good man,” he says.
7.25 Embankment
We are going to the Embankment to take the Thames Clipper to Canary Wharf to show we won't be cowed by the RMT. Boris is a terrifying cyclist.
When he sees traffic, he speeds along on the inside lane, scooting along the curb with his left foot as he squeezes past lorries and buses.
The Embankment Tube station is virtually deserted but Boris heads in to thank the handful of staff who have turned up for work.
I ask the Mayor how many trains are running. He looks blank but concedes it is a good question, and goes off to ask one of his aides.
We take the 8.05 Clipper to Canary Wharf. As part of Boris's “strike mitigation strategy”, he has persuaded the river boat operators to lay on extra services, and we have a delightful voyage east while Boris glad-hands the commuters, thanking them for defying the strike.
08.50 Canary Wharf.
For the cycle ride to the Excel Centre, we are joined by Isabel, the Mayor's environmental adviser.
She looks terrifyingly fit in her Lycra gear. East London cycle lanes leave much to be desired, and soon we are lost.
There should be a cycle lane somewhere but Boris announces firmly that we will be taking the direct route, which happens to be the A13.
When he sees a thundering herd of lorries, he wants to get in there among it.
Mercifully, Isabel puts her foot down. There is a major policy disagreement between the Mayor and his environmental adviser but being a New Yorker, she prevails and forces Boris back from what would have been a suicidal and statutorily illegal short cut.
09.30 Excel Centre
As part of his “we will not be cowed” strategy, Boris is going ahead with his planned address to the annual convention of the Recycling and Waste Management community.
Since becoming Mayor, Boris has developed an acute interest in a field to which previously he had seemed indifferent.
He thanks the exhibitors for beating the strike, and then listens intently as a man explains everything anyone could want to know about the science of waste compacting.
“Why can't we have some of those?” he asks Isabel as he inspects a fleet of zero-emission vans.
Word is coming in that the strike has been far less successful than Bob Crow would have expected.
The Northern and Jubilee lines are running almost normally. Aslef men have crossed the RMT's picket lines, and perhaps a quarter of RMT staff have reported for work. Boris is buoyed.
I complain that I want to see his situation room, with maps and crisis strategy briefings, but Boris looks perplexed.
It turns out that Boris has next to nothing to do with overseeing the strike, which — perfectly sensibly — is left to Peter Hendy and the Transport for London staff.
15.05 Mayor's Office, City Hall
Boris looks tired but ebullient as he telephones around town, thanking people who have put on extra services, the man in charge of river boats, and the official who was responsible for laying on extra buses.
“The key thing to note is the essential fragility of this strike,” he says.
I was expecting to see flow charts and briefings on his desk but he appeared to be seeking inspiration in a different form, a collection of Imperial and Commonwealth Obituaries.
Boris has won the political battle. True, millions of Londoners have had a terrible day but picket lines have been crossed, the RMT unity has been shattered and there is no public support for men on £40,000 a year who, in the teeth of a recession, are demanding jobs for life.
“The scales have fallen from the eyes of many members of the RMT about what their leaders have been doing,”
Boris says, adding that he thinks it very unlikely this sort of strike will be repeated. He is probably right.
As London commuters shuffle back home, it was clear that the RMT had failed in its ambition to paralyse the capital.
Boris, by keeping away from the fray of a 1970s industrial dispute, seems to have won the day.
Anyone who has experienced at first hand his terrifying determination on a bicycle knows it would be foolish to underestimate the Mayor's will.
Reader views (33)
It looks as if he didn't meet with union bosses because he wanted the strike to begin so that he could start to try and destroy the Union as expected by his party. Workers have no say in their working conditions or pay, in Tory eyes.
T H Leeds
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK
Here we go again, another Thatcher intent on breaking the Unions but leaving the bosses one alone The CBI. The clown trying to do the lion tamers job. This could turn out to be a tourist attraction in time.
T H Leeds
- Thomas Hayes, Leeds UK
RMT: bad
Bob Crowe: dinosaur
RMT stooges in comments: pathetic and losers
Ked Ken: voted out - stay there.
Boris: a hero
Picket crossers: courageous...we are grateful!
- Aloicius, Vauxhall, London
Neil- No matey- I'm just a life-long Londoner who cares about his city, like Ken, unlike the celebrity Boris Johnson.
Tellingly, you or your blinkered masses have nothing to say about Boris' failure to keep his pledge to negotiate with the UNIONS to ensure we can all get to work and back without hindrance.
Thank heavens (or Ken) that we had bendy-buses to ship masses more people than a RM or new-RM (remember them?)would have shifted during the strike.
- Fresh, London
Go Boris. Everyone else is just praying for a job. these greedy Bs want a raise. What a bunch of selfish sods.
- Ruck, Myrtle Beach USA
In response to the quote below from your website,
KL should remember that he lost his job to Boris Johnson because he wasn't capable (a fact that eventually most Londoners came round to realising). Give it a rest Ken, do us all a favour and go for a long holiday.
Ken Livingstone is on the radio, telling anyone who will listen that in his day, he'd have had the RMT round for beer and sandwiches and saved Londoners from 48 hours of hell (rubbish, like they'd listen to him).
- R. Diskin, London
fresh you make me sick. who are you ,either an RMT spin doctor,( in which case you are not doing a GOOD JOB), OR 70'S socialist/union dinosaur
- Neil, on my bike in london ,so not paying TFL fares,london
"I will look to reduce the disruption caused by strikes on the Tube by negotiating a no-strike deal, in good faith, with the Tube unions." Boris' pledge.
If the RMT were ignored because of their "constant strike threats", then why hasn't Boris met with, say, ASLEF? They are a tube union also. Maybe, possibly, he just couldn't be bothered, or forgot, or was too busy, in a river somewhere.
- Fresh, London
Mrs Fresh, London
He has a mandate which is more than Brown could ever dream of having and I really mean "EVER"
Tony - Boris is not a train driver he is Major.The job you refer is delegated to another, facts please.
- Geri, London
Oh- and Boris, instead of unclipping your microphone and audio link on TV and running away from Big Bad Bob, how about being man enough to face him like your predecessor and sort this out?
- Fresh, London
Boris astonishes his colleagues by turning up "bang on time".
"so hungover that he could barely speak" - and we pay him to turn up for work like this (and play ping-pong)
"dodges buses and lorries, and the occasional red light...Boris is a terrifying cyclist" and wanted to take a "suicidal and statutorily illegal short cut".
This idiot weaves in and out of traffic, undertakes traffic skimming the pavement endangering himself, pedestrians and winding-up drivers. He's the worst kind of road user, someone ban this jerk from our roads.
Also Boris- is your grasp of detail so poor that you can't negotiate with the Unions- what about that no-strike election promise? Gone the way of all the other empty promises? Do some work Mr Mayor, not just the PR stuff.
And wake-up London- this isn't a Mayor worthy of our great city.
- Fresh, London
Whatever extra services was going on it obviously wasn't enough as I notice many people struggling to get home yesterday. Boris, as mayor of london, should have tried to sort this out instead of running away
- Tony, london
We had plenty of tube stikes when Ken Livingston was Mayor and we also had London at a standstill in the snow when Ken was Mayor.
- Michael Leighton, Maidenhead Berkshire UK
As it is now proved beyond dispute that Boris scuppered a settlement it makes all his posing and the sycophantic tone of this report a load of nonsense.
- Colin, barking essex
Keep at it Boris, let's smash the RMT fascist gang.
- Jamal Akhbar, Edinburgh
Rubbish, he should have just met Crow in person and sorted it all out.
- Russell, London, UK
Quite right that Boris has left the management of the strike to TfL management. I worked for the Underground in the nineties and know far too much about the no compulsory redundancies deal. Long overdue for scrapping, along with the unnecessary layers of management which has survived into TfL. Go Boris.
- Ladywholunches, london
During his election campaign Johnson stated that:
"I will look to reduce the disruption caused by strikes on the Tube by negotiating a no-strike deal, in good faith, with the Tube unions"
However it is now very clear that Johnson has not actually met with the RMT since he was elected.
Johnson appears to be all talk and no trousers. No change there then !!
- David Dee, Canterbury
Where are all the pickets? Such is the apathy amongst the RMT that its' members can't even be bothered to picket. I wonder how many will return to work on Friday and how many will extend their holiday ,sorry I mean strike, into the weekend by phoning in 'sick'?
- Bob, London
How about pay bonuses to staff that turned up to work? Or is this this illegal?
- Dave, Canvey Island
Boris you are a tad late -a good manager would have avoided the strike!!and not waited for the photo call buck up son-
- Keith Skelton, Colombo Sri Lanka
"By common consent, Boris Johnson botched the first weather emergency of his mayoralty"
That's your opinion, Mr. Robinson. One that is not shared by the great majority of Londoners.
Having seen a heavy lorry slide gently right across the road on Brixton Hill, I was very relieved that no buses were running.
And, believe it or not, buses don't always use main roads, so gritting them would have made little difference.
In the present debacle, the mayor is doing the right thing. These overpaid dodgem drivers have been spoilt for long enough.
- Sarahn, London, UK
Everyone I know supports Boris. What a breath of fresh air!..
- Bill Caplin, Camden
Up until recently, I was an Operational Manager for LUL so I am following events with interest. I'm hoping that Boris and LUL does stand firm. LUL staff are fairly well paid with some excellent perks and in today's climate, the RMT have no valid reason for taking strike action. It's costing our economy millions of pounds at a time when the economy can't afford it. This strike will only result in great inconvienience for millions of Londoners and tourists. However, enormous credit should be given to LUL workers who have turned up for work, as believe me, working during times of Industrial action can be very stressful so it would be greatly appreciated if you would refrain from expressing your understandable frustrations towards staff who are working and trying their level best to deliver excellent customer service! These staff should be applauded!
- K.C., Wollongong, Australia
Why shoukd Borris meet with the RMT. Their demands are ridiculous.
Giving into them is like giving into terrorist demands. Once the see you are weak we will have strikes every other week.
- Dave, Canvey Island
Good for you Boris, leading the way, and inspiring us all, also not giving in to Bob Crow and his bullies!
Hopefully his membership will now begin the understand the truth behind how he is using them, and their lost wages to further his own political agenda. Naturally his own inflated monthly salary and benefits remain untouched.
Two points about this piece however, firstly to describe the two feet plus of snow, which confronted me outside my home in Greenwich that day, as being the result of a 'snow shower' is surely stretching the truth rather too far in search of being amusing,and I certainly id not see this forecast on any of the weather programmes I saw he evening prior. Also I am sure I remember a paralysing strike by tube workers, whilst we Londoners were suffering under Ken Livingstone's pompous, self interested, self ego inflating reign, when he told union members to 'crosspicket lines'. Hardly a strike saved by cosying up to his pal Bob then. Another socialist who bends historical fact for reasons of expediency then.
And pray why do the local media grant this envious has been so much airtime?
- Trevor Edwards, London England
Interested in the description of Walthamstow municipal At this time, it is the head quarters of a modern day Labour ouncil and some might say so retains its links with neo-fascism.
- Helen, norwich
Bob Crow has said that a deal was nearly done which would have stopped the strike and then following a phone call the offer was withdrawn!
Only Peter Hendy or more likely Boris Johnson could make this deceision so did Boris scupper the talks because he sees himself as a later day Thatcher whose target is the RMT instead of the NUM?
If this was the case then he and NOT Bob Crow will have cost millions of pounds to the London economy.
As Chair of TFL I would have expected the Mayor to have met the unions who represent TFL workers and yet over a year later Boris has still not met them. Not only is this bad management it is also bad politics!! As it allows Bob Crow to go on about still not meeting the Chair of TFL.
Looks like Tim O'Toole got out in time and found himself a new job with First Transport. Well the 1st strike did not take many days after his departure.
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex
Bob and Boris are as bad as each other. Sack them both.
- Robert Jones, London
Terrific stuff. Boris is not the sort of mayor to give-up and concede whenever the Unions come calling. I'm glad I voted for him.
- St, London
Well done Boris, People come first not union power
Alan
- Alan, Essex UK
shut up red ken, i remember plenty of strikes when you were mayor. You let these greedy train drivers do a 35 hour week for £40,000 p.a in the first place.
- Dave, dagenham
We love you Boris!
- Damian, Croydon
