London Underground drivers announce July strike action

London Underground drivers are to strike in a long-running dispute over pensions and conditions. Aslef said its members will walk out on July 26 and 28, coinciding with industrial action by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union. Finn Brennan, Aslef’s full-time organiser on London Underground, said: ‘We take action only when needed. Unfortunately, the last few weeks have shown that London Underground management are determined to try to push through detrimental changes – despite trade union opposition – if they think they can get away with it. ‘They have already announced that they intend to start training managers in August on a new attendance procedure, and will implement it from January, ignoring the current agreed procedure. ‘This new procedure would mean no right to representation or appeal at stage one of the disciplinary process and the length of all warnings would be doubled from 26 to 52 weeks. To protect our pensions, working conditions, and agreements, our members are ready to act ‘All sickness longer than one week would be regarded as ‘long term’ meaning that a manager can send a driver to redeployment without any further meeting. After just six weeks in deployment a driver can be, as they put it, ‘terminated’. ‘ Management also want to force through their plans for what they call ‘trains modernisation’. ‘They want unrestricted remote booking on and off, driving shifts up to 10 hours long, ‘flexible cover’ weeks in every roster, and fixed links to be scrapped. ‘That would make it impossible for Tube train drivers to organise their lives outside work or to have an effective change-over system. ‘Their aim is an entirely flexible workforce with all existing agreements replaced – allowing them to cut hundreds more jobs and forcing those of us who remain to work harder for longer. ‘To protect our pensions, working conditions, and agreements, our members are ready to act.’ RMT members will take action from July 23 until July 28 with some form of strike or walkout every day except for Monday July 24 in a similar dispute.