Who can blame Tube drivers for demanding more money for less work when Sadiq Khan has proved he’ll always cave to their demands, says Alys Denby
If you’re reading this on an agonising commute, perhaps having queued for hours to cram yourself between strangers’ armpits, you don’t need to be told how disruptive Tube strikes are.
Members of the RMT union have timed two 24-hour walk-outs this week to cause the maximum possible pain for passengers. The Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) estimated that the last round of strikes cost the London economy £230m in lost business. And it will come as no comfort to anyone struggling to get into the office that Tube drivers are taking this action over contract changes that would allow them to turn up to work less. The RMT’s claims that a voluntary four-day working week would cause “fatigue” are plainly absurd.
Don’t take it from me – take it from ASLEF, another trade union representing drivers, which said: “It’s a shame that the RMT leadership has decided to campaign against a proposal that gives drivers an extra 35 days off every year along with a reduction in days and hours at work on a voluntary basis.
“If the RMT are to call a strike on this issue, it will be the first time in history that a trade union has asked its members to strike to stop workers having a shorter working week with more time off for no loss of pay!”
Rebuke
That they are facing such a rebuke from their own colleagues is an indictment of this militant trade union. But Londoners should be angry at the Mayor too. Sadiq Khan promised zero strikes under his leadership. Instead he has presided over the highest rates of industrial action in the history of TfL. Since the pandemic Tube workers have seen their pay grow by 25 per cent with no quid pro quos such as performance improvements. Can you really blame Tube drivers for becoming lazy and grasping when City Hall has proved it will always submit to their demands for more money and less work?
Khan clearly believed that he could avert strikes by the ingenious ruse of not being a Tory. As Wes Streeting is finding with the British Medical Association, this does not work when you are dealing with extremists who are prepared to hold ordinary people to ransom.
And just like the junior doctors, the RMT is damaging its own cause. Every day of transport chaos they impose on London increases calls for automation. With robotaxis already on our streets, Tube drivers should be very wary of hastening the desire for their own obsolescence.
If there is one upside to these strikes, it is that e-bikes will attract new converts. This clean, efficient and entirely private technology proves that capitalism always finds a way.
Alys Denby is opinion and features editor of City AM
