London’s Tube drivers will strike for 24 hours on March 15, the Aslef union said Wednesday, with commuters facing another spell of disruption.
(Bloomberg) — London’s Tube drivers will strike for 24 hours on March 15, the Aslef union said Wednesday, with commuters facing another spell of disruption.
The strike on the Underground will be followed by several days of industrial action on the UK’s wider rail network. Unions remain in dispute with bosses over pay levels, working conditions and pensions.
The Tube strike is planned for the day of the next budget, when Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt will update Parliament on the government’s fiscal policies. Hunt has insisted the UK can’t afford to significantly boost pay for workers across the public sector and in partly-privatized industries such as rail. Unions are demanding bigger raises to make up for inflation which remains above 10%.
Civil servants, teachers and junior doctors are also due to strike on March 15.
The RMT union will then hold strikes across 14 train companies on March 16 and 18, while its members at Network Rail, who work on the upkeep of the tracks, will strike on March 16 and 17. The RMT’s rail workers will also strike on March 30 and April 1.
“This will be only the first day of action in a protracted dispute,” warned Finn Brennan, Aslef’s full-time organizer on the Underground, if Transport for London does not back down.
Aslef’s drivers voted by 99% in favor of striking again, on a 77% turnout, the labor group said Wednesday. It said the dispute on the Tube is over “management’s failure to accept that changes to our working arrangements and pensions should only happen by agreement.”
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