RMT and TSSA have dealt another blow to London Underground’s plan to decimate staffing levels with a fourth one-day strike on 28/29 November. The action was as effective as previous walkouts, perhaps even more so, as RMT and TSSA members remained solid, and many ASLEF members respected our picket lines. Despite the bitter cold, reps and members picketed up to 100 workplaces.

TfL exaggerated the service it was able to provide to such an extent that even the usually-sympathetic press used the term ‘Transport for Lies’. And while passengers suffered serious disruption to their travel, they continued to send messages of support to the union because they know we are defending their longer-term interests.

Thanks To You!

RMT thanks and appreciates all our members, and members of other unions, who are standing firm in this dispute. We know the devastating impact on both passengers and workers of the wholesale de-staffing of our underground system.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: ‘I congratulate you on delivering another rock-solid strike to defend safety and jobs. TfL’s dishonesty about the effects of the dispute, as well as their lies over unstaffed stations have now well and truly caught up with them and that the public no longer trust them. It is clear that our industrial action has been having a cumulative effect and this action has been the most effective yet.’

What Next?

RMT’s national Executive will meet soon to decide further strike dates. The union’s London Transport Regional Council (made up of London Underground workers sent as delegates by RMT branches in the region) has unanimously recommended escalating the action, with longer strikes. Delegates warned that to simply keep walking out for 24 hours each month would probably not stop London Underground cutting the jobs, so we need to intensify the pressure. The Regional Council has also asked the national union to provide hardship payments to strikers.

Meanwhile, we still have our ‘action short of strikes’ keeping up the pressure on management. And we are continuing to work to win public support and put pressure on politicians.