Once again, the bully boy of London is holding the capital to ransom. Bob Crow, the class-obsessed former communist boss of the RMT union, has picked a fight with the London Underground (LU) and has called a 48-hour Tube strike that is intended to cause maximum disruption, target an international football match and cost the capital around £100 million in lost earnings. The pretext is ludicrous, the political motives obvious and the tactics as underhand as they are despicable. Even if a last-minute reprieve is granted, the disruption is colossal. It is clear to the 3.5 million daily Tube users that obstructive and blinkered trade unionism still flourishes beneath London’s streets.
This callous brinkmanship has become an annual ordeal. The pretext this year is even more risible. Mr Crow is demanding a pay rise of 5 per cent and a promise of no compulsory redundancies - in the depths of a recession. The current inflation rate is below zero and the Underground urgently needs to shed some of the extra staff taken on to the workforce when it assumed responsibility for Metronet, the company maintaining most of the infrastructure, which is now in administration. LU has offered a four-year deal of 1.5 per cent this year and then the inflation rate plus 0.5 per cent - or a two-year deal of 1 per cent now and inflation plus 0.5 per cent in Year 2.
Any such long-term deal is anathema to Mr Crow. For him, the yearly confrontation is the chance to bask in the headlines, however negative, that he craves. He is bitterly hostile to the proposal by Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, for a long-term no-strike deal. He knows that Mr Johnson was elected partly because Londoners are tired of disruption, and that any deal would undercut the posturing union leader and his fellow militants. Typically, when LU improved its pay offer, Mr Crow made the reinstatement of two drivers - one of whom was sacked for opening the doors on the wrong side and then lying about it - part of the RMT demand. No member was balloted. The aim was purely to sabotage a compromise.
It is high time that Mr Crow was emasculated. Mr Johnson was cautious before his election on any future confrontation, but it was obvious that one would come sooner or later. Unfortunately, the mayor does not have the immediate option of dismissing all the striking workers, a tactic used to devastating effect by President Reagan in his clash with striking air traffic control workers. Even a day’s strike costs London enormous sums in lost earnings for businesses, shops, theatres and restaurants. What the mayor and LU should do, however, is counter the RMT’s blackmail by the automation of train control. The Victoria and Central lines have the technology to function without drivers. Were the job to become redundant, striking train staff could swiftly be replaced by other crews.
Meanwhile, he and LU management should stand firm. Mr Crow was rebuffed by voters in his self-aggrandising bid - at large expense to RMT funds - to become an MEP on a platform of xenophobic hostility to the EU and its support for privatisation. He must be rebuffed again.
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This is not simply a matter for London. The Underground is a vital link for visitors to the capital. Britain is to host the 2012 Olympic Games and is bidding for the 2018 World Cup. Thousands of fans with tickets for the England World Cup qualifier game against Andorra to be played at Wembley tonight will be disappointed if they cannot reach the stadium. That is a heavy and absurd cost to pay for Mr Crow’s antics.
There is no place for such industrial sabotage in today’s Britain. London must see it. The country must see it. Most of all, the RMT, Mr Crow’s pawns, must see it and vote him out of office.