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Police Community Support Officers on the Tube today threated strike action saying new shift hours mean they cannot get home at night by public transport and stand to lose up to £1,000 in allowances.

They changes by the British Transport Police (BTP) mean one in three shifts will now finish at 1am, after most public transport has stopped running.

Unlike the police, PCSOs can take part in industrial action.

The strike move threatened to leave large parts of the Tube network unprotected without PCSO patrols.

Manuel Cortes, leader of TSSA, representing the officers, said: “Are they supposed to sleep at the station? No employer should turf their staff out at 1 am onto the streets of London with no way to get home.

“But that’s exactly what the BTP, the very people charged with ensuring the public travel safety, are now doing to their own staff.”

He said requests for the majority of shifts to start earlier and finish at Midnight have been rejected.

The union boss called on Mayor Sadiq Kahn to intervene in the increasingly bitter dispute and “bang heads together if necessary.

“He is the BTP paymaster when it comes to security on our Tube and I am sure he too will be as shocked as we are at the way this safety group of staff is being treated.”

Mr Cortes said the new clock-off time is being imposed from next month as part of a BTP cost-cutting exercise to reduce night shift allowance payments by five per cent – meaning PCSOs could lose around £1,000 a year.

BTP Deputy Chief Constable Adrian Hanstock said: “It is disappointing to learn of this proposal by TSSA to ballot our PCSOs on plans for industrial action, which feels somewhat premature and excessive when we are still engaged in discussions with those few employees affected by our planned shift changes.

"I must also contradict the suggestion that this is an exercise in cost-cutting by ruthlessly cutting shift allowances.

“Since our shift patterns were last reviewed in November 2009, the demand for our services has changed significantly; trains and hub stations are much busier, the volume of policing football and other events we police at weekends is greater and we of course want to continue to provide a regular and reassuring presence across the rail network for the safety of staff and passengers.



The BTP employs 330 PCSOs, almost half in London stations, but, because they cannot afford London housing, London PCSOs depend on trains in and out of the home counties for the commute to work.

The union said the changes broke a 2014 agreement that night shifts should work in line with Tube and mainline train timetables. Under current arrangements staff do work some shifts up to 1 am but with the opportunity to change or swop shifts.