London Tube strikes will go ahead in row over TfL cuts
24 February 2022, 09:47
Two 24-hour Tube strikes will go ahead next week after peace talks with TfL bosses broke down, the RMT union has said.
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More than 10,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union will walk out next Tuesday and Thursday (March 1 and 3), threatening disruption to Tube services across the capital.
The RMT said during talks at conciliation service Acas that it set out a framework which could have enabled the union's executive to consider a suspension of the action.
The union claimed LU "dragged their heels" and blocked a route to progress.
During the talks, the RMT said LU confirmed its worst fears that "nothing is off the table" in terms of the threat to jobs, pensions, conditions and safety.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "Our members will be taking strike action next week because a financial crisis at LU has been deliberately engineered by the Government to drive a cuts agenda which would savage jobs, services, safety and threaten working conditions and pensions.
"The sheer scale of that threat was confirmed in talks.
"These are the very same transport staff praised as heroes for carrying London through Covid for nearly two years, often at serious personal risk, who now have no option but to strike to defend their livelihoods.
"The politicians need to wake up to the fact that transport staff will not pay the price for this cynically engineered crisis.
"In addition to the strike action RMT is co-ordinating a campaign of resistance with colleagues from other unions impacted by this threat."
Acas said it remained in contact with the parties.
