Tube union RMT has hit back at what it describes as “lies and dirty tricks” from the management side in the dispute over cuts to jobs and ticket offices that would rip-apart the safety regime, and threaten staffing, across the tube network.

In a message on its website, LU/TFL claims that RMT is;

“…..to ballot their members on London Underground (LU) in response to plans unveiled last week to run parts of the Tube for 24 hours at weekends during 2015.”

RMT has called for the totally fictitious and misleading statement to be withdrawn as the ballot, which will open on December 3rd and close on January 10th, is specifically over the threat to jobs arising from the cuts to ticket offices and their knock on effect on staffing levels across the tube system.
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“You can tell that the Mayor and his officials are in trouble when they have to resort to lies and dirty tricks about the real issues at the heart of the tube cuts dispute.

“The RMT ballot is over the threat to jobs across the combine resulting from the plans to close every single ticket office in the face of previous assurances and promises from the Mayor, before he was elected, that he would not close any. Those planned staff cuts impact on every single member of tube staff both in terms of future employment prospects, recruitment freezes and in terms of the safe and efficient running of tube services. That is the issue we are balloting on from next week.

“That is also why the RMT campaign is running under the banner “Every Job Matters.”
“The reality of course is that any move to longer running hours would require more staff not less as maintenance schedules are compressed and stations are flooded with revellers rolling out of bars and nightclubs at three o’clock in the morning. The idea that they would be piling into unstaffed stations controlled by a member of staff three stops down the line with an IPad is lethal nonsense.”