The two tube strikes that were due to take place this week in a dispute over Night Tube staff grades have been cancelled.
The RMT and TfL have been in negotiations at the dispute arbitration service ACAS since this morning to try and avert the strike, and they are now being suspended.
RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said: “Following extensive and wide ranging discussions through the ACAS machinery we have hammered out enough ground to allow those talks to continue. As a result this week’s strike action is suspended although the rest of the planned action remains on.”
The dispute is due to TfL wanting to merge the night tube grade into the standard tube staff grade, which the RMT opposes as they argue it will lead to job cuts among the night tube staff. However, Nick Dent, Director of Customer Operations for London Underground has previously said that no job cuts are planned from these changes.
However, although this week’s strike is suspended, do note that the southern half of the Circle line and part of the District line will still be closed for planned engineering works as that’s not affected by the now-cancelled strike action.
The cancellation only applies to the two stikes that were due to take place this week – the strikes for later in the month are currently still going ahead.
Assuming no last-minute cancellation, those stikes are due to take place between:
- Noon on Tuesday 24th Aug to noon on Wednesday 25th Aug.
- Noon on Thursday 26th Aug to noon on Friday 27th Aug.
