Are you affected by the London Tube strike?
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London Underground services are back to normal after a 24-hour strike closed the entire system, causing travel misery for millions of commuters and holidaymakers.
“The responsibility for this strike and the disruption that it will cause rests squarely with London Underground management”, said Finn Brennan, Tube organiser for the Aslef union. It is purported to be the biggest Underground strike in more than a decade, CNN reports. On July 7, 2005 Islamic extremist set off several bombs throughout the subway system and on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square. Transport for London (TfL), which oversees London Underground and reports to Johnson, said people should travel outside peak hours today and consider working from home where possible.
Taxi firm Uber made its services available to desperate commuters but asked for three times the regular fare.
The Tube strike coincided with a 48-hour stoppage by workers on First Great Western which will disrupt trains to and from London Paddington.
London Underground’s managing director Mike Brown apologized for the disruption but insisted it was a “remarkably fair” pay offer.
About 20,000 Tube workers are expected to walk out during the course of the strike.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, Aslef, the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) and Unite have been in dispute over pay being offered for the new all-night Tubes. Money has never been the key issue in this dispute – ensuring that change is negotiated rather than imposed and introduced in a fair way has.
“We can not continue to have more and more weekend and anti-social hours working”.
Transport for London, the city’s organization responsible for transportation networks, responded to the unions on its Twitter page, saying the “Night Tube will boost” the city’s economy and that “striking is unnecessary”.
“After a short transitional period, train operators will have the choice whether or not to work the Night Tube shifts”.
The strike started at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
In the post he says TfL offered a last minute pay deal “ultimatum” that did not give the unions enough time to consider the proposals.
“I think most reasonable people will look at the offer that’s on the table from London Underground and find it impossible to fathom why the unions are rejecting it”, he said. “We would be willing to start those talks on Friday once this dispute is over”.
“We have recruited 137 additional train drivers to allow all night operation and reduce the impact on our existing drivers”.
However, he says that under TfL’s proposals he will have to work a minimum of 14 weeks of nights each year.
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It deplored the fact that Tube workers “who have only just recently been rightly lauded as some of the heroes of 7/7 are now being treated in such a disgraceful manner”.
