London Underground workers strike over new working patterns

As a result of the strike about 40 out of London’s 275 stations were closed, including Covent Garden in the heart of London’s West End and King’s Cross, one of the capital’s busiest stations.

LU says the new patterns are part of the Shorter Working Week (SWW) pay deal it agreed with the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) last November. The union described the two-year deal as “groundbreaking” and sold it as a two-and-a-half hour reduction in the working week to 35 hours, albeit “self financing”, i.e., to be paid for by the workers themselves.

At the time the RMT said there would be no job cuts. The union says, however, that it was not shown the new work patterns during last year’s negotiations and that the number of workers being displaced is many times the 200 it was told would be the case during the talks. RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said, “The rosters that LU intend to impose would reduce the number of station staff on duty at any one time, in many cases by more than half. We believe that that would leave stations with insufficient cover, especially in emergencies.”

The RMT said 4,000 workers had taken strike action and called on LU to accept a compromise offer it was proposing to prevent a second stoppage scheduled to begin on January 8. The union also warned that Tube drivers and signal workers could be balloted for action short of striking because LU had breached safety standards during the New Year’s Eve strike by using untrained management and office staff.

Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, declared the strike a “non-event” and claimed, “The majority of London Underground staff did not agree that it made sense to punish ordinary Londoners on New Year’s Eve.”

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jan2006/tube-j04.shtml