London Underground staff have voted for industrial action despite a last-minute offer from TfL. Why is the strike going ahead?

Why can’t TfL, the Mayor’s Office and the unions agree?

London Underground submitted a proposal to the unions, which on the face of it appears reasonable – saying no employee will be forced to work longer hours, staff will be able to swap night shifts between themselves, and all will be able to refuse night shifts after a trial period.

The offer also includes:

An above-inflation average 2% salary increase this year and an inflation-proof rise in 2016 and 2017.

A £500 payment to night tube staff when it is introduced in September.

Drivers, who already work shifts covering 24 hours, will receive an extra £200 per night shift during the trial period, after which they can refuse to do them.

Drivers will have the same number of weekends off as now.

Everybody will remain entitled to two days off in seven.

But the unions say the last-minute offer is a favoured tactic of employers knowing that the union leaders will have no time to put the offer to their members before the strike is due to start.

The trial period, after which tube staff will have the right to refuse night shifts, in fact lasts for a year. A year is a very long time to have to suddenly make new arrangements if, for example, a spouse is depending on childcare. There’s also no guarantee that staff would get their regular hours back if they refuse night shifts.

The unions say the offer fundamentally does not change their key concern, that no proper system has been agreed for night shifts, and staff will be rostered to work all night without consultation.

Don’t tube drivers already get paid £50k?

An average tube driver’s salary is £49,673. However. the strike is not about pay, but working patterns for staff who already work unsocial hours. In any case, most of the staff on strike are not tube drivers – who are among the more senior London Underground employees – but station staff who are paid considerably less.

Christopher Gage (@ChristophGage) The strikes are actually about working conditions, not pay. Quoting how much a Tube Driver makes is irrelevant. Homework. #tubestrike

Driving a tube sounds easy enough – can I become a tube driver?

There are many stories in the media about how you can’t just turn up and be a tube driver. Nor should you be able to, as it’s a demanding job with an onerous public safety responsibility. Is it true then, that you can’t be a tube driver, even if you want to be?

The reality is that being a tube driver is a senior position, and you have to start by working on the stations before progressing up the ladder.

TfL has not run an open recruitment campaign for drivers since 2008. In 2013 RMT strongly objected to London Underground’s plans to advertise the position on the open market, because they said it implied all current station customer service staff were not good enough to become drivers.

“There are very few promotional opportunities for customer service assistants; this move further reduces those opportunities,” the union said at the time. “We believe that the ‘shortfall of successful applicants’ is because of failings in the assessment and training process, which are rejecting capable candidates.”

Critics say the unions are opposing any wider advertisement of tube driver positions because they currently have strong support from station staff, but external candidates may not be as strongly attached to unionisation.

I work weekends and long hours; why do tube staff think they are exempt?

One tube worker told the Guardian:



Drivers work unsociable hours. They can be working three out of four weekends and almost every bank holiday and have been doing so for many years. For managers to come along and say we are introducing a night tube and not consult the drivers and station staff and enforce a new working pattern on them without consulting them is unethical.

We could work 17 weekends and have one off, potentially. The unions in previous years have fought for our work conditions and have kept our jobs secure. I am on a fixed term contract with London Underground at a time where my job future with London Underground is in question yet they are hiring new staff on permanent contracts around me. I feel alienated by a company that treats staff as if they are slaves. In any work place where terms and conditions are changed without consultation there will be uproar. Thankfully we have our unions to back us.

Tube workers have decent salaries, eight-hour days and up to 52 days’ paid holiday because they are strongly unionised. The unions would say that if you envy those working conditions, you should join a union.

How do the tube drivers think they’ll win over public opinion with these strikes?

They don’t. The Daily Mash put it best with their headline “Strikes supposed to be annoying, say tube drivers”.

Londoners complaining that the tube strike is frustrating have been reminded that is the point.

But as Stephen Bush put it succinctly in the New Statesman, tube staff have significant bargaining power because their jobs are so essential to keep the capital moving.

Tube drivers have something almost everybody in London wants, are difficult to replace and are well-organised. If I could bring the New Statesman to a standstill by not turning up for work and wasn’t eminently replaceable, you better believe I’d hold out for a great deal more than £50k.

John Wood, the TUC’s digital manager, wrote in a widely shared blog post that he had never met a striking worker who was not concerned about the negative impact they would have on a service.

“Striking is a last option, when your employer is refusing to negotiate – it’s not something people do on a whim,” he said. “But it’s hard to see how a worker can refuse to work without impacting on the people who make use of their work.”

Can’t we just have driverless trains?

We probably can. The DLR is already a driverless train and that’s one of the only services running in London today – which Conservative London assembly member Andrew Boff say is proof that getting rid of drivers is the answer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Riding the DLR on the tube strike day.

But the DLR can still be disabled by strike action. In May this year, RMT held a “rock solid” 48-hour strike on the service over pay and working conditions for contractors.

The majority of the staff striking this week are not tube drivers, and stations will need to be staffed, even if the trains are driverless. Robots are not the answer.