It comes after the RMT union agreed last week to suspend planned strikes on the London Underground…reports Asian Lite News
Tube driver strikes scheduled for later this week have been suspended amid ongoing talks between trade unions and Transport for London. Members of the Aslef union had been due to walk out on Thursday and again next Tuesday in a move shop stewards said would being the capital “to a halt”. Tube services will now run as normal on both days.
It comes after the RMT union agreed last week to suspend planned strikes on the London Underground. Aslef said it had received a “significantly improved offer” from Transport for London (TfL) on pay and working conditions, although TfL sources said the pay rise still stood at 3.8 per cent.
Union representatives want TfL to drop pay reforms that would see bands, or grading, introduced for Tube drivers. At the moment, all Tube drivers are paid £67,100, a sum that would rise to just shy of £70,000 per year if the unions accepted TfL’s proposed 3.8pc pay rise.
Finn Brennan, Aslef’s full-time organiser on London Underground, said: “Following fresh talks, and an improved offer, Aslef has agreed to suspend our planned industrial action on London Underground. Details of the offer will be discussed with our reps at a meeting on Thursday. We are pleased that this progress has been made and that strike action has been averted at this time.”
Claire Mann, TfL’s chief operating officer, said: “We are pleased that Aslef has suspended its planned industrial action on the Tube, and that Londoners will not be disrupted this week or next. “We believe that we have made an offer to our trade unions that is fair, affordable, good for our colleagues and good for London, and we urge our trade unions to continue working with us.”
The RMT said around 10,000 of its members were involved in the ongoing dispute, adding that it was prepared to engage in talks if a “fair and fully consolidated” pay offer were to be put forward. Although strikes have been suspended for now, the threat of fresh walkouts remains, with threats of strike action seen by union bosses as a routine negotiating tactic to wear down London’s transport authorities.
In January, Tube workers were given a five per cent pay rise by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, that cost the taxpayer £30 million, prompting accusations that he had found a “magic money tree”.
Keith Prince, the City Hall Conservatives’ transport spokesman, said that a £30 million, 5 per cent pay rise handed to Tube staff in January by Sadiq Khan had failed to prevent fresh strike threats later in the year.
“Londoners have had to make alternate plans and adjust to these unions holding the city hostage, and so far it seems that the Mayor’s £30 million bung to address that has gone up in smoke,” said Prince.
“If this is Khan’s union negotiation strategy, it’s no wonder that his record on industrial action is 100 strikes worse while in office than Boris Johnson’s was, despite Khan’s 0 strike promise.”
When campaigning to be elected as mayor in 2016, Khan promised there would be “zero days of strikes” in the capital during his tenure.
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