Brixon Buzz reports that Brixton Tube Station will be closed 28th to 30th April and 5th to 8th May due to industrial action regarding proposed closure of ticket offices:
London Underground workers are set to take five days of strike action in April and May over the proposed closure of all 260 Tube ticket offices and 960 job cuts.
The RMT Union has announced its that members will walk out from 21:00 on 28th April for two days and once again from the same time on 5th May for three days.
The first two days of strike action are timed to take place ahead of a May Day event in memory of former RMT leader Bob Crow and politician Tony Benn.
In a statement, RMT acting general secretary Mick Cash said:
The talks aimed at resolving the dispute on London Underground over the savage cuts to jobs, services and safety have been cynically wrecked by a Tube management who not only refused to budge an inch but who have chosen to up the ante by injecting further poisonous measures into a package that was already toxic to the core.
Staff are furious that while senior management pay and staffing levels are being allowed to roar ahead the jobs and pay of the core, station based staff who are the interface with the travelling public are being torn to ribbons.
The assurances that were given at the time RMT suspended the original action for a proper evaluation of the cuts plans have been ripped up and thrown back in our faces.
An opportunity to resolve this dispute through eight weeks of talks hosted by Acas has not only been missed, it has been sabotaged.
As a result, RMT has no option but to put on further strike action in the expectation that the management will now halt these dangerous cuts plans and engage in meaningful and serious talks on the future of a tube network running at full tilt, with further demands in the pipeline, which needs more staff and not less to operate safely.
Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, condemned the “pointless” strike, insisting that, ““Rather than threatening more disruption to the lives of hard-working Londoners, they should call off the strikes and, like the three other unions, get back round the table and talk to London Underground.”
Elsewhere, the BBC reports that senior staff at Transport for London have also voted to take strike action in a row over pay and pensions.
