Londoners prepared for two days of travel chaos today as last-minute talks to avert a planned strike on the country's Underground train network collapsed without reaching an agreement.
Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) Union members are set to walk out until Wednesday evening and a second 72-hour strike is planned for the same time next week. They are protesting against impending ticket office closures and potential job losses.
The industrial action on the Tube network is expected to have a knock-on effect on buses and other trains as commuters try and use alternative routes.
London Underground (LU) has claimed that as only 3 per cent of tickets are now sold at ticket offices, it wants to move staff onto concourses.
RMT acting general secretary Mick Cash said: "London Underground have dug themselves into an entrenched position and have refused to move one inch from their stance of closing every ticket office, in breach of the agreement reached previously through ACAS which enabled us to suspend the previous round of action."
Despite the spin from LU, nothing they are proposing is about 'modernisation'.
The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, branded the strike as "pointless".
"More than 600 people have asked for voluntary redundancy and yet, without consulting any of their own members, the RMT is suddenly insisting that London Underground halt this process," he said.
"Commuters and businesses will suffer because a few narrow-minded union barons are currently flexing their muscles in a fight for the leadership of a union where just 30 per cent of members support a strike," he added.
LU has said concessions had already been made, including a promise that a supervisor would work out of every station, rather than one worker overseeing up to five stations.
There would be no compulsory redundancies, it added.
The strike is also expected to severely hit the city's university students taking degree exams.
