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8 Jul 2015

Early rush hour as London commuters avoid tube strike

Workers in London head home early in a bid to avoid potential travel chaos as a 24-hour walkout by underground staff begins.

With the stoppage due to start at 6.30pm on Wednesday and last all day on Thursday, some commuters expressed their frustration at having to take a day off work in addition to leaving their offices early.

Staff from all four unions involved in the strike mounted picket lines outside stations. The dispute is over the new all-night tube service which is due to start in September.

London Underground bosses say the walkout is “totally unneccessary” and insist they have “strained every muscle” to put together a fair pay offer.

However Finn Brennan of Aslef said: “The responsibility for this strike and the disruption that it will cause rests squarely with London Underground management. They squandered the window of opportunity to resolve this dispute by refusing to move their position in the slightest for three months and then demanding that all four trade unions accept an offer in one afternoon.”

Managers have offered an average 2 per cent pay rise this year and at least RPI inflation for the next two years, plus a £2,000 payment for drivers on the new service.

The tube strike coincides with a 48-hour stoppage by workers on FirstGreatWestern trains which will disrupt mainline services in and out of London’s Paddington station.

With the strike not fully underway, Cecily Hana Mullins tweeted a photo of a crush of people waiting to go down the stairs into Oxford Circus tube station, with the caption: “What tube strike?”