London Underground strikes


employees organised by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and Transport Salaried Staffs' Association have had a number of disputes with both London Underground and privatised contractors including Metronet and Tube Lines over pay, safety, pensions and job security, leading to travel disruption in the capital. Due to the disruption this causes, the usage of both driverless trains and retired train drivers have been suggested as solutions to keep services running on strike days.

Strikes

StatusStartEndParticipantsMotivationNotes
Completed2009-06-10?2009-06-11 1859 BST??The strike coincided with an England international match.
RMT leader Bob Crow claimed that either the transport commissioner or the Mayor of London blocked an agreement with the RMT on the eve of the strike only 35 minutes after LU management had agreed to it.
Completed2010-09-06 17:00, 21:002010-09-07 21:00RMT, TSSARemoval of 800 safety-critical jobs. "RMT are up in arms at TfL's attempts to get volunteers to help people's travel plans.""Boris Bikes part of plans to mitigate effects of London tube strike".
Completed2010-10-03 18:30??RMT?"With both the Mayor's office and the unions refusing to budge on the need to reduce manpower on the network, and the unions slowly escalating the non-strike action, it looks likely that this will be a long running saga."
Completed2010-11-02??RMT?
Completed2010-11-282010-11-29RMT?
Cancelled2011-06-192011-06-??RMT"The sacking of Arwyn Thomas, a driver member of the RMT who was dismissed for ‘unacceptable behaviour’ towards a colleague."On 15 June 2011 the RMT announced a strike would begin on 19 June 2011, disrupting the Wimbledon Championships. On 22 June, a tribunal ruled that the sacking was unfair. On 24 June 2011, the strikes were cancelled after London Underground reinstated the Tube driver at the centre of the dispute.
Completed2014-02-042014-02-06RMT?Further strikes over TfL's plans to close Underground ticket offices took place in February 2014.
Completed2014-04-??2014-04-??RMT?More strikes took place in April/May 2014.
A strike ended 21:00 BST, Wednesday 30 April.
Planned2014-05-05 18:30 BST 2014-05-08 18:29 BST All "fleet grade" members of the RMT."’s plans to slash jobs and close ticket offices replace skilled workers with unreliable automation in all areas of its work, including train maintenance, engineering, service control and train operation."
Planned2014-05-05 21:00 BST 2014-05-08 20:59 BST Non-"fleet grade" members of the RMT.as above
Cancelled2016-12-242016-12-25RMT"The dispute is over tube station staffing and safety. Over 3000 RMT station staff members were balloted for action over the impact on safety from the axing of nearly 900 front-line workers alongside the closure of tube ticket offices. RMT says that the cuts have left safety on a knife edge with the incidents at Canning Town and North Greenwich throwing the spotlight on dangers which are being worsened by the cuts process."85% voted for strike action and 94% for action short of a strike in the ballot. Called off on 22 December 2016.
Completed2017-01-08 1800 GMT2017-01-09 1800 GMTRMT"Our members are out in force across London Underground this morning in the fight for jobs and safety. The strike action is being solidly supported on every line, at every station and on picket lines right across the Tube network.
This action has been forced on us by savage cuts to jobs that have reduced London Underground to an under-staffed death trap at a time of heightened security and safety alert."		In response to the cutting of 900 station jobs.

Public opinion

In two separate polls, the Evening Standard found that a large majority of Londoners were in favour of making it more difficult for Tube workers to strike. In the first poll in 2013, 59% agreed that it was too easy for them to go on strike and 14% disagreed. In the second poll in 2014, 56% were in favour of banning Tube strikes unless 50% of eligible union members voted in favour of a strike. A poll for LBC radio found that 65% of people in London did not support the current tube strikes and 16% said they supported them. Among the general population, 46% said the August 2015 strikes were unjustified whereas 19% said they were justified according to a YouGov poll.

Legislation

The government has proposed to raise the strike threshold so that a strike can only take place if there is a 50% turnout and, in the case of core public services, if 40% of eligible workers are in favour. This change would make it more difficult for Tube workers to go on strike.