Union Leaders and Tube Bosses Hold Strike Talks

London Underground bosses say that the leaders of the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) and Transport Salaried Staffs Association unions have agreed to meet at Acas, the conciliation service, to try to avert the impending series of 24-hour strikes. The talks are set to start on Thursday, and the first walkout is set to start next Monday evening. The unions have also scheduled 24-hour strikes to start at 5pm on Sunday, October 3; Tuesday, November 2; and Sunday, November 28.

The company said that they are calling for the strike to be avoided and will be reiterating that their changes to staff will be delivered without any compulsory redundancies, guaranteed. This is what the dispute has been about, the cutting of 800 workers. The company is also guaranteeing that all their stations that have a ticket office will still have one and they will still have staff on duty at all times there.

London Underground chief operating officer Howard Collins welcomed the union leaders in agreeing to talks. However, he says that the company needs to change, as they can’t continue on the way they are with some ticket offices only selling 10 tickets or less every hour.

Bob Crow, the general secretary of the RMT, said that they are happy London Underground has recognized the importance of opening up discussions. The industrial action is still planned, and due to recent incidents where stations have caught fire and a train on the Northern Line ran away, there are no grounds to compromise safe staffing levels or safety in general, he added.