RMT announces campaign of action to halt 12.5% London Transport cuts

TRANSPORT UNION RMT announced today that it will be mobilising a co-ordinated campaign, up to and including the use of industrial action, to halt massive cuts set to devastate transport services across the capital, smuggled through under the cloak of the Government’s spending review back in June.

The 12.5% cut to the Transport for London budget, amounting to around a billion pounds worth of cuts over the next five year period, comes at a time of growing transport demand in the Capital and against a background of a surge in population in Greater London. RMT believes that the cuts programme, currently under discussion in secret at City Hall, will unleash unprecedented attacks on jobs, working conditions, safety standards and essential services like ticket offices.

Even before the main cuts targets have been announced the battle has begun in a number of key areas:

· London Overground, plans to unilaterally sack the guards from trains, threatening 130 safety-critical jobs and moving the whole service to Driver Only Operation in a move that would be a foretaste of what is to happen on other London rail services. RMT is currently in the process of balloting for strike action on this issue.

· Sell off of key London Underground assets, like the Lillie Bridge maintenance depot, where RMT is fighting alongside the local community to stop the social cleansing and yuppiefication of a whole swathe of West London.

· Closure of the busy Whitechapel ticket office exposing the pre-election promises of Boris Johnson to retain ticket offices as a pack of lies. RMT is fighting the Whitechapel closure and sees it as a set-piece issue that would open the floodgates for ticket offices across London.

· London Transport Museum, facing a massive programme of cuts despite the fact that its important work has been right at the centre of the celebrations of the London Underground anniversary.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“RMT isn’t going to sit back and wait for the TFL cuts tidal wave to be unleashed, we know what’s coming and it stacks up to a billion pounds worth of unprecedented attacks over a five year period that would devastate jobs, safety and services against a background of soaring passenger demand.

“The attack on the guards posts on London Overground is a taste of what’s to come and nobody should be under illusions, RMT will co-ordinate campaigning and industrial action across the length and breadth of the capital to fight off cuts that would impact on every single Londoner and which would leave no area of the transport system unscathed.”