Ross Lydall: Tube passengers face week-long strike misery in November

Evening Standard

Tube passengers are facing week-long travel misery in November after two unions announced a string of strikes on the London Underground.Aslef, the Tube drivers’ union, has ordered 24-hour walkouts on Thursday, November 7 and Tuesday, November 12.

Transcript

00:00A number of tube strikes have been announced that look set to bring the London Underground

00:04to a standstill at the start of November. Now crucially RMT station staff will walk out on

00:11November the 5th and signalling staff for three days from November the 6th so this will overlap

00:17with the action being taken by the Aslep train drivers and the impact could be that for much of

00:23the first week of November the London Underground is going to be almost entirely closed or fully

00:28shut down. Now crucially the RMT station staff will walk out on November the 5th and the signal

00:35is from November the 6th for up to three days and when that's combined with the Aslep walkout that

00:41means that passengers could essentially face a whole load of misery trying to travel around

00:47London during the first week in November. So why has this strike been called? Well the issue is

00:52simple it's about pay. TfL has given a revised offer of an average of 4.6% with lower paid staff

01:00receiving slightly more than those on higher salaries. That means for example that tube

01:05drivers who typically earn much more than station staff will receive an average of 4.5%

01:11but the RMT says this offer is poorly inadequate and it wants more money for its members and it's

01:17also concerned that in return for this offer that union members will be giving up certain rights

01:23and that is something that RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch is totally opposed to. Unusually news

01:30of these strikes was broken here at City Hall by the TfL Commissioner Andy Lord. He was giving his

01:36usual address to the TfL board. Normally the unions announce the action themselves but they

01:42only confirmed it once the standard got in touch after Andy Lord had revealed that two strikes

01:47would be held in November. At the time when Andy Lord spoke he thought ASLEP were just going on

01:51strike but then very quickly afterwards the RMT said hang on a minute we're going to go on strike

01:56too. So the big question for commuters though is will these strikes actually go ahead? It could be

02:02the case that this is simply the unions flexing their muscles showing how determined they are to

02:07take action if necessary. More talks are planned, the unions will want to see more money on the table

02:14but the problem for TfL is that it's just saying today that it's in a much worse financial position

02:19than it expected. The number of passengers returning to the tube and to the buses is lower than it

02:25projected. So TfL's coffers aren't exactly overflowing just now and it may feel that

02:31four and a half percent four point six percent is a fair offer and it may not budge much further on that.

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