The strikes, from Wednesday 23rd June and Wednesday 14th July will affect the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, the RMT has said; but the union warned the whole network could be hit because the unit dealing with urgent repairs is run by the contractor Tube Lines on behalf of the whole of London Underground.
Transport for London (TfL), controlled by London Mayor Boris Johnson, bought out Tube Lines shareholders for 310 million pounds last month, ending a public-private partnership. It effectively brought London Underground back under state control and ended months of wrangling over upgrade work. TfL will now take control of maintenance of the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly Lines.
The union said TfL had failed to give assurances that "staff won't take the hit for the failure of the doomed privatisation project ... We are already seeing clear signs that maintenance schedules on Tube Lines are being hacked to the bone and that situation will only deteriorate, with dire consequences for the travelling public, if more jobs are axed," RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said in a statement. A TfL spokesman said in a statement: "This is an existing dispute about pay and conditions and not about the proposed transfer of Tube Lines to TfL. We strongly urge RMT leadership to call off the threatened strike action and to enter proper dialogue with us after our acquisition of Tube Lines."
