Three million London commuters hit by Tube walkout

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Three million London commuters hit by Tube walkout

10:28, October 05, 2010      

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A strike by workers on London's Underground system, the Tube, affected three million commuters on Monday, as leaders of business and the mayor of London called for new laws to make it harder for strikes to go ahead.

Workers in two unions -- the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT), and the Transport Salaried Staff Association (TSSA) -- called members out on strike over cuts in staff levels that will see 800 jobs disappear.

The jobs are in ticket offices, which are less busy now after new ticket machine and technology were introduced. The 24-hour strike began on Sunday evening.

The strike, the second in just over a month, was criticized by the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who said the strike was " irresponsible" and "politically motivated".

Johnson, a member of the Conservative Party which is the senior party in the coalition government, called for laws to curb the powers of strikers, and said strikes should not be allowed unless 50 percent of members had backed them. Currently, a strike vote needs only a majority of those who voted to succeed.

The coming year is likely to see an increase in strikes across the country. The new coalition government is to tackle the record public spending deficit with the most drastic cuts seen since the Second World War.

Cuts could reduce government spending by 111 billion pounds ( 167 billion U.S. dollars), and up to 650,000 jobs will be under threat. Unions have said they will strike to protect jobs.

Johnson broadened his attack on the Tube unions to include unions and strikers in general. "They have an apocalyptic vision of the next two or three years, in which the public sector unions respond to the cuts with wave after wave of debilitating strikes," he said.

The RMT said the strike had been a success with support "rock solid." Three out of 11 Tube lines were shut, while services on the other eight were disrupted. Tube management said that only 30 percent of trains were running.

Confederation of British Industry (CBI) deputy director-general John Cridland said: "The law needs updating to reflect the fact that 85 percent of private sector employees are not members of a union, and that most employers now negotiate directly with staff or their representatives."

He added, "While workers have the legal right to withdraw their labor, employers have a responsibility to run their businesses."

Cridland also called for firms to be allowed to hire temporary staff to cover for striking workers. "The public increasingly expects it to be business as usual, even during a strike, so firms must be allowed to hiretemps directly from an agency to provide emergency cover for striking workers," he said.

Reaction from the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the umbrella body which represents unions in Britain, was critical. General secretary Brendan Barber said: "The UK has some of the toughest legal restrictions on the right to strike in the advanced world."

He added: "It is particularly disappointing for the CBI to take such a one-dimensional view of industrial relations in which strikes are always the fault of unions, and never that of management. Strikes are always a last resort as union members lose their pay. Fundamentally shifting the balance of power at work even further towards managers would encourage bad bosses and end up reducing standards across UK workplaces."

Monday's strike is the second in a series of strikes over job losses, which began with a strike in September and includes another strike in November.

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