London Underground maintenance workers vote to strike over claims of a breakdown in industrial relations
LONDON Underground maintenance workers vote to strike over claims of a breakdown in industrial relations.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union backed walkouts by two to one.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "The level of flagrant abuse and ignorance of long-standing policies and procedures is unacceptable and the anger among RMT fleet grades members is clear following this overwhelming mandate for strike action and action short of a strike.
"The ballot result will now be considered by RMT's executive and it is down to London Underground to start taking this list of grievances seriously, to stop trying to impose fundamental changes to agreed policies and working conditions and to halt the bullying and harassment of our reps."
A TfL spokesperson said: “We urge the RMT leadership to work with us constructively on the issues it has raised rather than threaten unnecessary industrial action.”
This evening RMT workers will walk out for 24-hours, in a dispute over the "displacement" of staff.
The strike will affect the Central and Waterloo and City lines, mainly on Wednesday.
Peter McNaught, operations director for the Central Line, said: “I apologise to customers for the disruption that this unnecessary strike will cause.
“We have made all reasonable efforts to resolve this dispute through talking through the issues with the unions, and we have minimised the number of employees affected from over 30 to eight.
“All of these moves are within the long-standing agreements we have made with the unions.
“We urge them to engage with us to resolve this issue and to withdraw the strike action, which will only cause needless disruption to Londoners.”
Earlier this week London Underground’s Night Tube workers threatened to strike just six months after services started.
The RMT Union has ordered a ballot of Night Tube drivers working on the Central, Northern, Jubilee and Piccadilly lines and the result will be announced on March 14.
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