Tube strike threat over staffing and ticket office closures is off after the TSSA accepts London Underground deal over jobs
The threat of industrial action on the London Underground over jobs has come to an end, after the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) accepted a deal.
As a result, the union has called off its overtime ban.
Both the TSSA and the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union had been in dispute with London Underground over ticket office closures and job cuts.
An earlier walkout in January had seen over three thousand workers go on strike, shutting down the majority of Zone 1 Tube stations and causing severe travel disruption.
Read more: The story behind the Tube strike – a new era of 'smart travel' beckons
More strike action was on the cards for this month, but fresh proposals from LU bosses led to the TSSA suspending action, saying the offers "pave the way for a resolution" and it would have further talks to hash out details. It has now accepted the deal.
TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said:
Enormous credit must be paid to our members on our Tube.
In refusing to work overtime for the last few months, they have proved beyond any doubt that our Tube was no longer employing enough people for stations to the meet minimum legal staffing requirements needed to remain open, let alone deal with congestion or other major security issues.
Boris Johnson's cull of over 800 jobs blew all safety procedures apart.
He thanked Johnson's successor, mayor Sadiq Khan, "for listening to our members, but, more importantly, for taking them seriously and acting upon their concerns".
The RMT suspended strike action planned from the 5 February after talks with LU bosses at conciliation service Acas. It said the talks had resulted in "nearly 60 per cent of the original job cuts planned" being reversed.
"That is a tremendous victory and a reflection of the resilience and determination of our reps and the membership right across London Underground," said RMT general secretary Mick Cash. "We will now continue to work on implementation of the new staffing arrangements at the local level and as always RMT remains eternally vigilant."
Read more: Tube delays from overcrowding have tripled in five years
Steve Griffiths, chief operating officer for LU, said: "We agree that we need more staff in our stations and we will be recruiting at least 650 new station staff this year, of which 325 will be additional new roles. The remainder will comprise supervisor and customer service assistant roles and are expected to be a mix of both full time and part time."
However, Conservative London Assembly member Keith Prince warned that the deal has shown the mayor "can be bullied and blackmailed by the transport unions into acting against the interests of London".
Prince added: "Boris Johnson’s ticket office changes saved TfL £50m per year. This reversal will waste tens of millions of those savings and could sink the mayor’s already ludicrous savings projections.”