Bob Crow: Blame Boris Johnson for this Tube strike

What this dispute is all about is a scandalous attempt to dress up savage, austerity-led cuts under the cloak of ‘modernisation’
Glenn Copus
4 February 2014
WEST END FINAL

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London’s Underground system is a stunning success story. Against a background of under-resourced and ageing infrastructure and surging passenger demand the Tube continues to deliver an extraordinary level of service within a safety culture that involves staff at every level.

Now all of those positives are threatened with being swept away under a tidal wave of austerity cuts cooked up by Mayor Boris Johnson and his officials. These run counter to the most clear-cut and explicit promises any politician could have made to their electorate.

Johnson laid it on the line at the London Assembly in March 2010: “No ticket offices will be closed, all right? They’re not going to be closed… The answer to the number of ticket office closures is: nil.”

In a cynical attempt to rewrite history we now have Tube officials denigrating the function of ticket offices and the staff who work in them to fit the latest twists and turns of the script.

Ticket office staff, along with their platform colleagues, are the eyes and ears of the service. Trained and experienced in evacuation and other emergency procedures, they are also on hand to assist those with disabilities, language issues and other needs to get safely from A to B. The removal of these key workers would turn the Tube into a no-go zone for many and a paradise for those with crime on their minds.

I want to take this opportunity to nail once and for all the lie that the RMT is against modernisation. Nothing could be further from the truth. My union has campaigned relentlessly for investment in the Underground, to upgrade and expand services, to replace the archaic fleet and infrastructure with the best available and to tackle backlogs of maintenance and renewals. Londoners deserve that.

What we will not accept, and what this current dispute is all about, is a scandalous attempt to dress up savage, austerity-led cuts under the cloak of “modernisation”. There is nothing modern about reducing the Tube to a hollowed-out shell with a skeleton staff.

In Pictures: Tube strike (February 2014)

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The Mayor and his spin doctors have attempted to portray this dispute as being about extended running hours at the weekend. That’s simply not true. Extended running would pose problems in terms of engineering and maintenance works and those problems can only be overcome through negotiation with us and the other unions: we await those talks.

However, the nonsense here is that late running, just as the pubs and clubs are turning out, would require more staff, not fewer, to ensure safety and order. The fact that those running the Underground appear to be unable to understand this simply defies belief.

London needs to prepare and build an Underground that recognises the achievements of 150 years of history but that also plans for the challenges that lay ahead. The unions have a central role to play — but the idea that our future is a faceless, de-staffed railway that leaves passengers to fend for themselves around the clock is senseless.

The current union dispute is about our vision of a future for the Tube that is safe and secure and can deliver the increased capacity and quality of service expected by passengers paying a high price for the right to travel. I urge you to support us.

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