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Disruption to London Underground services could intensify today because the 48-hour strike by the RMT union has prevented the completion of many overnight maintenance checks of trains and tracks.
Two thirds of Tube trains were cancelled yesterday and many sections of line were closed but London Underground claimed that services had been better than expected. More than a million Tube passengers switched to other modes of transport, leading to severe congestion on roads and mainline trains. Only about one in ten of the 1.5 million people who commute into Central London did not make it into work.
The RMT failed in its objective of shutting down the whole Tube network and there were some services on nine of the eleven lines, though only the Northern Line, with its Aslefdominated workforce, ran a full service. Aslef criticised the strike and, unlike in previous RMT disputes, made clear that its members should cross picket lines.
The strike did not cause chaos for football fans trying to reach Wembley for last night’s World Cup qualifier between England and Andorra. Wembley Park Tube station remained open all day but mainline train operators refused to stop at stations near the stadium after wrongly assuming that Tube lines would close, causing a risk of dangerous overcrowding.
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The RMT and London Underground did not meet yesterday despite both sides claiming all day that they were ready to resume talks that had broken down 20 minutes before the strike began at 7pm on Tuesday. The strike is due to continue until 7pm tonight but services will not return to normal until tomorrow morning.
Bob Crow, the RMT leader, wrote to Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, asking for a meeting. He also tried to discuss the dispute with Mr Johnson when the two men were being interviewed by Channel 4 News but the mayor removed his microphone and refused to speak to Mr Crow.
A spokesman for the mayor admitted that he had yet to meet Mr Crow, despite having been in office for more than a year.
He said: “The mayor has said he is absolutely happy to meet Bob Crow over a beer if he is not threatening strike action. But since [Mr Johnson] was elected, barely a day has gone by when the RMT hasn’t either been threatening or engaging in industrial action against Londoners.”
Writing in The Times today, Ken Livingstone, the former mayor, accuses Mr Johnson of failing to take action on his election campaign pledge to reach a no-strike deal with the Tube unions.
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He writes: “I invested a lot of time getting to know the leading personalities in the Tube unions and had many meetings with Underground staff. Although Boris Johnson gave an election pledge to introduce a no-strike deal we know that not only has he failed to meet the transport union leaders in the 14 months since his election but he did not even bother to send a letter asking them to consider a no-strike deal.”
A London Underground spokesman said that lack of maintenance could prevent some of the trains that ran yesterday from running today, although he said that some fully serviced trains had been kept in reserve to use today.
An RMT spokesman said that no further strikes were planned at present but the union’s executive would be meeting to decide its next move in the dispute. The RMT has to give seven days’ notice of strikes.
It is unclear how close the two sides were to reaching a deal on Tuesday night, despite claims by both sides that a compromise had nearly been achieved. The major sticking point was London Underground’s refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies. The union had indicated that it was willing to reduce its demands on pay and disciplinary procedures.
The London Chamber of Commerce said that six out of ten London businesses had been hit by the 48-hour strike, which would cost the capital’s economy more than £100 million.