London Underground strike begins

Travellers are being urged to find alternative ways of getting home as London Underground workers begin planned walk-outs.

The first 24-hour strike began at 5pm, and the second at 9pm on Monday.

The workers, members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA), are unhappy about plans to axe 800 jobs in ticket offices, saying safety could be at risk.

They plan to strike again in October and November.

A separate strike also began on Sunday at 7pm, when up to 200 maintenance staff on the Jubilee and Northern lines walked out in dispute over pay.

The employees at the Alstom-Metro depots will also strike again in October and November after rejecting an “insulting” sub-inflation pay offer.

‘Londoners are a hardy bunch’
Transport for London (TfL) and London Mayor Boris Johnson have announced contingency plans to deal with the strike, including 100 extra buses. Disruption is expected on all of the London Underground lines.

There will also be escorted bike rides, marshalled taxi ranks and capacity for 10,000 more journeys on the River Thames. Volunteers will also man Tube, bus and rail stations to help people with their journeys.

The mayor said: “Londoners are a hardy bunch and I am sure a Tube strike will not deter us from getting around. I have asked TfL to pull out all the stops, but we must be clear that the RMT and TSSA plan to inconvenience Londoners for no good reason.

“The extra measures we have put in call for a team effort and people will need to consider buses, boats or bikes as an alternative to their usual journeys. This planned action will cause disruption for millions of Londoners and I call on the unions to get round the table and show common sense.”

TfL warned that disruption would begin on Monday and last for most of Tuesday.

Director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, Tony Travers, told Channel 4 News that the strikes were nothing new.

“The Tube unions in general, but the RMT in particular, tend to hold a couple of days of strikes a year, each year, as if they are some kind of formalised annual event,” he said.

“They appear to view it as part of their industrial relations strategy to keep up pressure on the management and on the politicians who stand behind the management.

“Over the years, none of the politicians – from Boris Johnson, to Ken Livingstone, to Tony Blair, John Major and Margaret Thatcher, in living memory – have been prepared to empower the management of the Tube to sort out their industrial relations.”

Despite the cuts the Tube is facing, he did not expect too many more strikes.

More strikes possible - but all-out strikes of the past unlikely
"We are entering a period of tightened Tube finances that we have not seen since the 1990s or earlier. But Tube workers will be wary of protracted strike action, partly because they have relatively good terms and conditions - particularly the drivers. They enjoy many of the accoutrements of a bourgeois lifestyle. They are better paid than bus drivers, or nurses, and often have mortgages. They would not want a long strike," Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, told Channel 4 News.

"So will there be the possibility of more strikes, and more threats of strikes? Yes. But I would not expect to see the all-out, long-term, strikes from the trade unions we have seen in the past.

"We have been seeing the Tube modernise for a long time – when guards were removed from Tube trains it was seen as a threat to health and safety. But there was no problem as a result. The Tube is a safe system.

"Clearly, the Oystercard means there is a need for fewer ticket offices. The Tubes are not understaffed, in particular, the number of staff front of house is good. It is inevitable as the system of the Tube changes over time there will be fewer ticket offices.
"And remember Boris Johnson is going back on an earlier commitment here – but the truth is Ken Livingstone was closing ticket offices before him. It is a bi-partisan policy. There are no drivers on the DLR and on the Paris Metro there is at least one line (No 14) without drivers on it. Further de-staffing is inevitable in the years ahead.

"What the unions are really involved with is trying to maintain job numbers. The blame really lies with the management for not sorting it out. They have never seen fit to sort out the Tube’s antique industrial relations. From a workforce who have surprisingly good pay and conditions, managers need to make it clear striking cannot not be tolerated. They need to ensure a rational discourse to avoid repetitive strikes.

"Particularly in a world where large numbers of people in the private sector have lost their jobs and there will be fewer jobs in the public sector, the Tube is as secure place to work as any in Britain. A large number of the people travelling on the Tube, with less secure jobs, will be earning less than the drivers."

“We are entering a period of tightened Tube finances that we have not seen since the 1990s or earlier,” he said.

“But Tube workers will be wary of protracted strike action, partly because they have relatively good terms and conditions – particularly the drivers. They enjoy many of the accoutrements of a bourgeois lifestyle. They are better paid than bus drivers, or nurses, and often have mortgages. They would not want a long strike.

“So will there be the possibility of more strikes, and more threats of strikes? Yes. But I would not expect to see the all-out, long-term, strikes from the trade unions we have seen in the past.”

General Secretary of the RMT union, Bob Crow, told Channel 4 News the workers faced more pain and were striking against “the tip of the iceberg”.

“We’re striking today because 800 people are being taken away from the station which is not going to be safe. Only three years ago, when the terrorists had attacks on London Underground, these people were classified as heroes,” he said.

Look for alternatives
Transport Commissioner Peter Hendy said: “We continue to make every effort to avoid a dispute. There is no need for any action as the changes we are introducing come with no compulsory redundancies, and mean that stations will remain staffed at all times and every station with a ticket office will continue to have one.

“We regret that Londoners will be disrupted if the strike goes ahead. However the RMT and TSSA leadership will not stop London Underground from moving with the times.

“Due to the success of Oyster, just one journey in 20 now involves a ticket office, and some ticket offices sell fewer than 10 tickets an hour.

“The mayor and TfL have prepared plans to keep London moving and thousands of TfL staff will be on hand across the city to help our passengers…We urge everyone travelling in and around London during the strike to check before you travel and to consider the wide range of alternative travel options by going to www.tfl.gov.uk as well as staggering your normal journeys where possible.”

London Underground chief operating officer Howard Collins said: “It’s not the case that we’re de-manning or de-staffing anywhere.

“We are going to have staff on every London Underground station, staff on gate lines and in those busy stations plenty of staff to support people who need our help. We are a very visible organisation and we continue to miantain that. This isn’t about safety, this is about embracing change.”