Join the protest at 8am on Monday

TUBE UNION RMT will hold a protest at Whitechapel station at 8am next Monday – 15th July – as the union steps up the campaign to defend ticket offices on London Underground from attempts by Mayor Boris Johnson to smuggle in ticket office closures through the back door – despite pledging to oppose closures before he was elected.

RMT has uncovered a secret plan to remove the ticket office from Whitechapel station during the process of rebuilding the station for it to be served by Crossrail. The plans totally ignore the fact that the station serves an area which includes a busy market and a major hospital. The area is also known for its diverse local population, many of whom need to access staff support at an open ticket office rather than rely on ticket-issuing machines – machines that are vulnerable to vandalism.

RMT said today that the closure of just one ticket office breaks the important principle that there is staffed ticket office on every London Underground station and so could ‘open the floodgates’ to further closures. Having defeated LU’s previous attempts to close ticket offices en mass, the union will not stand by and allow the company to close them one at a time. The union has made it clear that it will take whatever action is necessary, up to and including industrial action, to oppose the Whitechapel closure and any other similar, sneaky moves elsewhere on the network.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“The threat to the ticket office at Whitechapel is a line in the sand as far as RMT is concerned and we will fight this plan tooth and nail. This is an underhand move by the Mayor and his officials which has huge ramifications for the rest of the tube network if it isn’t stopped.

“RMT is in no doubt that if the Whitechapel ticket office is axed it will open the floodgates to a surge of closures in the drive to de-staffing which will turn the Undergound into a criminals paradise and leave passengers who need support and advice stranded. We also have no doubt that this closure is part of a growing package of transport cuts in London driven by the axing of hundreds of millions of pounds from TFL’s budget in the Government’s spending review.

“RMT will be taking this political fight for the future of ticket offices straight to Boris Johnson, reminding him that he publicly pledged not to close tube ticket offices as part of his election campaign. RMT has no intention of letting the Mayor off the hook and we will use every tool in the box to halt this sneaky attack on a vital service that is valued by tube users.”