Tube drivers to strike eight times from 26 November
RMT Tube drivers will stage eight 24-hour strikes beginning at noon on Thursday 26 November, with further stoppages on 17 and 19 December — the last Saturday before Christmas — and on 4 and 6 January and 17, 23 and 25 February, in a dispute over Transport for London’s plan for a four-day week. The union says the scheme, which TfL insists is voluntary, is “a wholesale attack on drivers’ working conditions”; the rival Aslef union, which backs it, called the strike “a strange choice”.
About half of London Underground’s drivers are in the RMT, most of the rest in Aslef, so the June walkouts gave a guide to the disruption: Tube journeys fell by 40%, around 60% of drivers turned up and the Circle and Waterloo & City lines did not run. TfL’s offer cuts the working week from 36 hours to 35 with paid meal breaks, compressed into four days for those who choose it; the RMT wants a 32-hour week over four days and fears hundreds of job cuts, pointing to draft Bakerloo line rosters showing “significant reductions in staffing”. Eddie Dempsey, the RMT general secretary, said: “There is nothing voluntary about a scheme that forces drivers to give up existing protections whether they work four days or five, and threatens those who refuse with displacement from their depots.” Aslef’s Finn Brennan countered that the deal gives drivers “an extra 35 days off every year with rosters based on a 34-hour week”. TfL says it has committed “in writing” to the proposals being voluntary. The mayor has urged both sides back to talks; watch whether Aslef drivers again work through the strikes.