LONDON UNDERGROUND TOTAL SHUTDOWN JULY 26 & 28 – ASLEF joining RMT on strike

ASLEF Tube drivers will strike on Wednesday 26 and Friday 28 July, alongside their RMT colleagues, closing down the London Underground (LU) network at the end of this month.

Finn Brennan, ASLEF full-time organiser on LU, said yesterday: ‘We take action only when needed. Unfortunately, the last few weeks have shown that London Underground management are determined to try to push through detrimental changes – despite trade union opposition – if they think they can get away with it.

‘They have already announced that they intend to start training managers in August on a new attendance procedure, and will implement it from January, ignoring the current agreed procedure.

‘This new procedure would mean no right to representation or appeal at stage one of the disciplinary process and the length of all warnings would be doubled from 26 to 52 weeks.

‘All sickness longer than one week would be regarded as “long term” meaning that a manager can send a driver to redeployment without any further meeting.

‘After just six weeks in deployment a driver can be, as they put it, “terminated”.

‘Management also want to force through their plans for what they call “trains modernisation”.

‘They want unrestricted remote booking on and off, driving shifts up to 10 hours long, “flexible cover” weeks in every roster, and fixed links to be scrapped.

‘That would make it impossible for Tube train drivers to organise their lives outside work or to have an effective change-over system.

‘Their aim is an entirely flexible workforce with all existing agreements replaced – allowing them to cut hundreds more jobs and forcing those of us who remain to work harder for longer.

‘To protect our pensions, working conditions, and agreements, our members are ready to act.

‘Management need to realise that we will not just allow them to use the pandemic and government funding agreements to undermine everything we have achieved in the past.’

ASLEF members on London Underground – including management grades, London Underground APD, and LU Test Trains – will not book on for any duty between 00.01 and 23.59 on Wednesday 26 and any duty between 00.01 and 23.59  Friday 28 July.

RMT members on LU will strike for six days in a row from Sunday 23 July to Friday 28 July.

The RMT action is in response to planned cuts to around 600 jobs and against Transport for London (TfL) attempts to impose a £100m pension cut.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: ‘This week of action will shut down the London Underground and show just how important the work of our members is.

‘Plans by TfL to cut 600 jobs and attack our members’ pensions are simply unacceptable.

‘We are aware that Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has had the TfL budget cut. However, he needs to align himself with our union and his London Underground staff in pushing back against the Tory government, exposing their damaging agenda to a key part of London transport infrastructure.’

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