Commuter chaos as strike action shuts down London’s underground

The unions are in dispute over pay and conditions for the new all-night underground service, due to start at weekends from mid-September on some sections of the Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly and Victoria lines.

A frustrated Transport for London (TfL) worker has spoken out after feeling he and his colleagues have been wrongly accused of being “greedy” by initiating a Tube strike.

Earlier on Thursday London Underground bosses contacted the conciliation service Acas to help arrange fresh talks in the dispute.

The London tube strike clogged streets with commuters.

“We will be ready to return to the negotiating table on Friday morning to ensure that further action can be avoided”.

Mr Boff, who will run in next year’s London mayoral elections, said the answer was to replace drivers with computer-controlled trains, which would offer a more reliable service and save the taxpayer £141m a year.

This means there will be a significant financial setback for companies whose staff cannot get into work, although they may not lose out if employees are late.

“Speaking to the Guardian, Steve McNamara, head of the London Taxi Drivers Association, said: “[Uber] exploits its drivers, forcing many to survive on less than minimum wage and when they can they exploit their customers, seizing on other people’s misery to make more money.

“I think it is essential for the city, they want to show that you can’t do a huge change like this without them expressing their views”.

Without the trusty Tube, as the Underground system is widely known, commuters and tourists alike were forced to find their way to their destinations by bus, train, bicycle, taxi or on foot. He stated that although he was not opposed to Night Tube, he hoped it would be introduced in a way “that recognises that staff are human beings with lives and families as well as a job”, The Independent reports.

“We’ve wasted three months in negotiations that failed to address staff concerns and it’s essential for London that there’s no repeat and that puts the ball firmly in LU’s court”.

Or, as a fabulous analysis by BBC transport correspondent Richard Westcott explains: “Not that long ago, bosses on both sides would have got together, informally, maybe over a beer, to see if they could smooth the path for an agreement”.

“Unfortunately what has happened is that the union leadership has basically been spoiling for a big fight on this”.

Unions say management is trying to bulldoze new work patterns that will cause stress and wreck the work/life balance of people in critical safety jobs.

Commuters were very disappointed and hope the strike ends very quickly.

“When you’re living in London that long, you just have to learn to live with it”, said Thumwood, a native of the English capital. The Federation of Small businesses said two days of strikes previous year cost them a pretty penny at, about £600M.

In his view, “employers now have more control over our lives than at any time since the second world war”.