The RMT has called a series of strikes on London Underground in its continuing dispute over a proposed four day week for drivers, but ASLEF says it is surprised that the RMT is opposing a voluntary arrangement.

Transport for London has already said that drivers working four rather than five days a week would work fewer hours, but the RMT is insisting that the new rotas are being ‘imposed’, which is why it is calling the walkouts. It is also opposing a new Trains Modernisation Framework, and says it fears that jobs are at risk, claiming that the proposals would ‘force drivers to surrender hard-won protections regardless of whether they choose to work four or five days a week’.

It says drivers ‘face increased time spent driving trains, longer duties, earlier starts and later finishes, short-notice changes to shifts and attacks on existing transfer rights and annual leave arrangements’, and has ‘demanded guarantees that no driver choosing to remain on existing agreements would suffer any detriment, but London Underground management has failed to provide those assurances’.

Each 24-hour strike is set to start at noon, and the first has been called for 26 November. If the dispute is not resolved, further strike dates are 17 and 19 December, 4 and 6 January, and 17, 23 and 25 February.

RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said: ’London Underground is attempting to dress up a wholesale attack on drivers' working conditions as a voluntary four-day week.

‘But there is nothing voluntary about a scheme that forces drivers to give up existing protections whether they work four days or five, and threatens those who refuse with displacement from their depots.

‘Our members are being asked to spend more time driving trains, accept longer and more unpredictable shifts and surrender agreements that have been negotiated and defended over many years.

‘This is not about improving work-life balance. It is about squeezing more work out of fewer drivers while giving management greater flexibility at the expense of our members.

‘RMT is not opposed to a genuine four-day working week that benefits our members, but we will not accept it being used as a vehicle for job cuts, intensified working and the erosion of terms and conditions.

‘London Underground must withdraw these damaging proposals and engage seriously with the union to reach a negotiated settlement.

‘Our members are determined to defend their jobs, working conditions and the safety of the Underground, and they have our union’s full support in taking strike action.’

However, ASLEF’s London Underground organiser Finn Brennan told the BBC: ‘We are surprised that the RMT has, once again, decided to take strike action to try to prevent Underground drivers moving to a four-day week on a voluntary basis.

‘The voluntary four-day week gives Tube drivers an extra 35 days off every year with rosters based on a 34-hour week in return for some changes to working conditions and moving to electronic, rather than paper-based, systems for booking on for duty.

‘Management have agreed that anyone who wants to keep working a five-day week will be able to do so without suffering any detriment, and we will be holding them to that.

‘A strike designed to stop people having the choice of a shorter working week and more time off is a strange choice to make.’

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