London Underground drivers who are members of the Aslef union will not take part in planned tube strikes later in the month in the hope of clinching a deal, as it emerged that transport bosses were likely to delay the introduction of 24-hour tube services.

It has emerged that Aslef, which represents 85% of tube drivers, decided not to join the two planned stoppages after London Underground hinted that it was amenable to demands for an upper limit to the number of weekends drivers would have to work.

The unions fear that the introduction of a night service at weekends would mean unlimited weekend work. They are holding out for an upper limit of about seven or eight weekends a year. Aslef will hold direct talks with LU on Friday.

A source said hints from LU that the planned starting date for the night service at weekends will be pushed back from 12 September would give negotiators breathing space. But should the talks hit a dead end, Aslef could still join the two 24-hour strikes called by the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions.

Manuel Cortes, head of TSSA, said negotiations were now being conducted in “good faith”, adding: “Common sense seems to have broken out at last. We are hopeful in this new climate that it should be possible to reach a comprehensive and fair agreement.”

Even without Aslef, any stoppages would cause considerable disruption. Most signallers belong to the RMT. Without them, the tube would not be able to function. Even if Aslef’s official position is not to strike, some of its drivers may not cross RMT picket lines.

Earlier, Transport for London claimed that demands imposed by the unions would cost £1.4bn and hit Londoners with an extra 6.5% fare increase. “New demands made by certain trade union leaderships over the modernisation of London Underground, including the introduction of the night tube, would lead to significantly higher fares for LU customers or spell wholesale delay to vital improvements to London’s tube service,” TfL said in a statement, designed to win over public opinion as the dispute escalates.

TfL said a 6.5% rise in fares would mean an annual zone 1-2 travelcard immediately rising by £83 and an annual zone 1-6 travel card costing an extra £152.

Steve Griffiths, LU’s chief operating officer, said: “Having previously argued that it was all about ‘work-life balance’, certain unions have now made a whole series of unaffordable demands for more pay, shorter working hours and the reversal of the modernisation of the tube.”

TfL released the figures as LU and the four unions held a new round of talks under the auspices of Acas, the conciliation of service, to break a deadlock that has already led to two tube strikes in the past few weeks.

Mick Cash, the general secretary of the RMT union, immediately hit back at what he described as scare tactics. He said: “This is blatant scaremongering on figures cobbled together on the back of a fag packet before any agreement has been reached on issues of pay and rewards and are completely meaningless.”

Commuters face huge inconvenience on the evenings of 25 and 27 August, when stoppages threaten to disrupt services for days in the run-up to the August bank holiday weekend.



Nick Brown, the LU managing director, said he hoped progress would be made in the latest talks, following fruitless discussions on Monday. Rejecting union claims of “rosters from hell” to run the planned night tube service, he said concerns over work-life balance had been taken into account.

Brown told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We have made the rosters available so frontline staff can see them and we want to discuss these with the trade unions. The discussions have been going on for many, many months. But now they have pulled it back to actually asking about money and the lie to that statement is given by the fact they demanded more money on Monday night.”

Cash said LU was trying to cover up the impact of action short of a strike on Wednesday’s services, particularly on the District line. He said: “The RMT will be raising again today serious concerns that safety tolerances are being fudged and breached to try to keep services running, threatening passengers and staff alike. The solution to this dispute is serious negotiations around the work-life balance issues that have led to the action, not a cavalier attitude to safety to try and cover up the impact.”

Len Duvall, leader of the London assembly Labour group, blamed Boris Johnson, the London mayor, for creating the mess. “By speculatively announcing a start date without any consultation with the people expected to run the service, Boris Johnson’s gung-ho approach has led to disputes, disruption and now delay,” he said. “I hope this delay will provide the breathing space necessary for unions and management to sit down and negotiate a resolution to this dispute without the need for further disruption to passengers.”