48-hour London Underground strike will take place next week

Next week will see a two day strike on London Underground services that will coincide with separate strikes by council and civil workers nationwide.

By Dave Lancaster |

15:48 07 October 2014

The RMT Union has confirmed that a 48-hour strike on the London Underground will go ahead next week in response to a dispute from February which has already seen two strikes.

Transport for London is aiming to shave off £50m a year from its budget by cutting back staff and closing ticket offices as part of wider plans to save £4.2bn by 2020, according to the BBC.

The strike - which takes place between 21:00 BST next Tuesday and 20:59 hrs on Thursday - coincides with additional (but unrelated) nationwide strikes by council workers and civil servants.

Mick Cash, the union's general secretary, said: "RMT negotiators have made every effort in the long-running talks to resolve a range of issues that impact on our members' jobs, their pay and working conditions and the safety of the services that they provide to the travelling public.

"The strike action next week is designed to force the mayor to instruct his senior officials to back away from this toxic cuts package and engage in serious and meaningful negotiations."

However, Phil Hufton - the London Underground's chief operating officer - claimed that there had been over 80 meetings with unions to attempt a solution and that the strike was "pointless" and ill-timed.

Hufton said: "We have adhered to every single one of the commitments we made to our staff, including delivering on our guarantee of no compulsory redundancies and offering a job for anyone who wants to stay with us with no loss of pay.

"This action and the timing of it - to coincide with public sector strikes that have nothing to do with London Underground - is cynical in the extreme. It will only lose RMT members pay and disrupt Londoners."