Night tube “delayed until next year”

“Not only are the unions at risk of depriving millions of customers of their Night Tube service, they are depriving employees of a very fair pay offer and longer term opportunities to improve work life balance even further”, London Underground chief operating officer Steve Griffiths said.

The night tube is planned to run on the main sections of the Central, Piccadilly and Northern lines, and on the whole of the Jubilee and Victoria lines.

The longstanding Night Tube dispute dates back to March, when union bosses first challenged LU’s pay offer to introduce the all-night service from September.

Unions took industrial action during the summer having called for increased pay and a limit on how many all-night shifts their members would be asked to do.

Union sources told the Press Association that another meeting held on Wednesday had failed to resolve the deadlock, and talks have now broken up without agreement.

Mr Brennan said unions had “put forward a number of proposals to resolve this dispute” but these had been “rejected”.

“Agreement on this is in everyone’s interests – Londoners, businesses, visitors to our city and the hard working London Underground staff who are central to making this happen”.

“No-one wins from this situation – neither Londoners or Tube staff. RMT supports the principle of a Night Tube with properly agreed reward and rosters and the union remains available for further constructive talks”.

It isn’t quite time to say goodbye to the dreaded night bus yet – the night tube in London won’t be starting until at least 2016.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “This crisis management of the Night Tube could have been avoided if LU hadn’t chosen to try and railroad through imposed rosters and had stuck to the agreed negotiating framework from the off”. Once again Boris Johnson has proven to be all show and no substance’.

“RMT is frankly astounded that Boris Johnson has rung his officials from Japan and instructed them to kick the Night Tube into next year”, he said.