Talks are slated for tomorrow (30 August) between unions and the Mayor of London as strike action on the London Underground (LU) is confirmed.
Tube maintenance staff have pledged to stage two walkouts from 3 September to 6 September and from 10 September to 13 September, as union concerns hinge on what they see as potential job and pension cuts following the collapse of maintenance provider, Metronet.
The dispute is mired in a philosophically different approach to tube maintenance, with the RMT union in particular, implacably opposed to the Public Private Partnership (PPP) approach to underground upgrading.
During the first stoppage, Metronet workers will demonstrate at the Department for Transport in London on 4 September, calling for the return of infrastructure work to the public sector. The second stoppage will also see workers lobby the Trades Union Congress on 11 September for support from fellow trade unionists.
”As matters stand, the strike action is on and we are looking for assurances about the jobs and conditions of our members,” an RMT spokesman told ABTN, who emphasised the dispute was in the interests of tube users too.
”At the end of the day, the PPP is a disaster for London Underground and it is in the interests of the people of London, for underground maintenance to be undertaken by an organisation that is kept in one place and is answerable to LU.”
One of the RMT”s tactics has been to evoke the 2012 London Olympic Games, a little more than five years away, as RMT general secretary, Bob Crow outlined: ”Our members are the people who get out there and keep the Tube running seven days a week, and it is they who will deliver the improvement the network must have if it is to be up to the standard required by the 2012 Olympics.
"The PPP stands in the way of those improvements, and the time has come to return the work to the public sector where it belongs.”
"The bottom line is that [our members] will not accept being made to pay for the failure of the PPP and the decision by Metronet's fat-cat shareholders to walk away from the contract, and that means no job losses, no forced transfers and no cuts in pension entitlements.”
Strike ballots involving the RMT, TSSA and Unite Metronet members returned a total of 1,369 to 70 in favour of strike action, according to union sources. Metronet entered administration on 18 July.