The Night Tube services on the Central and Victoria lines will be hit by strike action again from tonight, as the RMT continues an ongoing campaign against changes to driver rosters.
Transport for London (TfL) is warning that both the Victoria and Central lines could be severely disrupted from 7pm onwards on Friday 10th and Saturday 11th December.
The impact of the strike action depends on the number of drivers booking on each weekend, so customers are being advised to check before they travel on Night Tube services for the most up-to-date information.
The strike affects train drivers only and stations remain fully staffed throughout the action. Plainclothed and uniformed British Transport Police officers are also patrolling the network.
Further strike action will follow on Night Tube services on the two lines on Friday 17th December. Unless cancelled, a planned 24-hour strike action on the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines will also affect services on the London Underground all day on the last Saturday before Christmas – 18th December.
Nick Dent, London Underground’s Director of Customer Operations, said: “We’ve been speaking to the RMT for some months about this dispute, and have guaranteed there will be no job losses and anyone who wants to stay part-time has been able to. Tube drivers will be rostered to work up to four night shift weekends every year, which they’ll be able to swap with colleagues as they wish, which we think is reasonable.”
TfL announced recently that night services on London Overground will be restored on Friday and Saturday nights between Highbury & Islington and New Cross Gate from next Friday 17th December 2021. No strike action is planned to disrupt Night Overground’s return.
Night Tube services on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines will return to service as soon as possible – and at TfL’s board meeting earlier this week, Andy Lord, Managing Director of the London Underground said that he would be able to give more details about that in the New Year.
“Tube drivers will be rostered to work up to four night shift weekends every year …”
Working 4 weekends out of 52 isn’t unreasonable or excessive.
The way the RMT are going on you’d think drivers would have to work virtually every weekend. They need to learn to pick their battles.
The sooner we have automatic trains and put some of these dinosaurs out to grass the better. Why don’t TFL take on some non union member drivers or is it still effectively a closed shop?
It would cost billions and billions to make the tube automatic. I don’t see that funding appearing in a hurry.
It makes a nice political slogan but the previous Mayor made zero progress on the driverless tube in the 8 years he was in office.
See e.g. London Reconnections for a piece on the myth of the driverless tube
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2021/the-political-myth-of-the-driverless-tube-train/
There are already non-Union and members of ASLEF who are not involved in this dispute