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Public transport, eh. A marvel of engineering, a wonder of human ingenuity, a godsend for getting across the capital... until chaos hits, as it has been doing quite regularly this year so far. The latest incident in the ongoing beef between transport union RMT and TfL is a strike that hit the London Underground network yesterday (Tuesday March 1) and is set to happen again tomorrow (Thursday March 3). All tube lines will be affected as RMT members walk out from midnight to 23.59pm. TfL has warned passengers to prepare for ‘severe disruption across all tube lines, with stations closed and little or no service across the network’.
Still, there’s hope for your commute tomorrow. It’s possible that parts of some services will remain open, as members of the Aslef and TSSA unions are not expected to strike. Plus, London bus, rail and tram services will still be in operation.
This strike is linked to RMT’s concerns that TfL is planning to make cuts. ‘Our members will be taking strike action next week because a financial crisis at LUL has been deliberately engineered by the government to drive a cuts agenda which would savage jobs, services, safety and threaten working conditions and pensions,’ said RMT’s general secretary Mick Lynch.
But TfL strongly refutes this claim, with Andy Lord, TfL’s chief operating officer, responding that ‘we haven’t proposed any changes to pensions or terms and conditions, and nobody has or will lose their jobs because of the proposals we have set out.’
Might be worth dusting off our bikes for a cycle commute, or returning to the 2021 glory days of working from home.
Archaeologists have uncovered a hidden Roman mosaic near The Shard.