The longstanding Night Tube dispute dates back to March, when union bosses first challenged LU’s pay offer to introduce the all-night service from September. Another meeting was held today but failed to break the deadlock.
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Talks have broken down between Transport for London and union workers meaning there’ll be no night tube service before the end of the year.
Unions have been demanding concessions to address work-life balance issues and accused London Underground of rejecting all their proposals.
The Night Tube was due to begin last month but was delayed over a dispute about staff pay and conditions.
“That is not something we are prepared to accept. The management of LU has completely mishandled these negotiations. They have wasted every opportunity for a settlement and seem to have been determined to provoke confrontation rather than resolution”.
The service was due to start on September 12th and is planned to run on Friday nights and the early hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings on the Northern and Victoria lines and parts of the Central, Northern and Piccadilly lines.
Mick Cash, general secretary of the RMT union, said the “crisis management” of the night tube project could have been avoided if London Underground “hadn’t chosen to try and railroad through imposed rosters and had stuck to the agreed negotiating framework from the off”. Labour London Assembly Member Val Shawcross went a step further, accusing Bozza of “perpetual dithering”.
LU claims the Night Tube is needed to deal with huge demand from passengers, especially at weekends, and is “pivotal” to the city’s economy. “Once again Boris Johnson has proven to be all show and no substance”.
“RMT is frankly astounded that Boris Johnson has rung his officials from Japan and instructed them to kick the Night Tube into next year”, he added.
A TfL spokesman said a response would be forthcoming.
‘Boris needs to pull his finger out and get round the table with the unions to negotiate a solution to this sorry state of affairs’.
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We have asked Transport for London for a response and await a reply.
