Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, strictly ruled out offering more money to resolve a dispute on the London Underground as the latest Tube strike got underway.
He said the latest “incredibly generous” offer made by Transport for London should be put by unions to their members and condemned the latest 24-hour walk-out, which was due to begin as Londra Gazete went to press.
Services began to wind down on Wednesday afternoon ahead of a full closure on Thursday. No Tube services were expected to run at all until Friday morning.
Speaking after a visit to military veterans at the Royal Hospital he repeated his refusal to meet union leaders himself to try to break the deadlocked row over pay and conditions for the planned new all night Tube.
Mr Johnson said said he was “not fussed” about the new service starting on time on 12 September: “I want it starting in the autumn – what I am fussed about is the offer being put to union members.
“I am not going to authorise any more money. Most people would recognise that this is a very generous deal.”
The mayor added that he did not believe politicians should “undermine” their own management and said it would be “grotesque” if unions called longer strikes if the dispute remains unresolved.
MORE BALLOTING
The row escalated when the RMT union announced it will now ballot engineers working for Tube Lines for strikes over the same dispute.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the drivers’ union Aslef, said: “Our members have rejected the latest offer from the company because they are forcing through new rosters without agreement and offer no firm commitments on work life balance for train drivers.
“We support night Tube. London needs it. We remain prepared to talk at any time to try to find common ground but by forcing these new rosters on train drivers and acting outside of our agreed way of working senior management are making it even harder to resolve this dispute.
“The Aslef executive committee meets next week and will discuss our response to these developments.”
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