RMT calls for indefinite suspension of botched Night Tube plans
TUBE UNION RMT today called for an immediate and indefinite suspension of the Mayor’s Night Tube vanity project warning that is so fundamentally flawed from top to bottom it risks wrecking expensive infrastructure, compromising staff and passenger safety and leaving essential safety critical engineering and maintenance works on the shelf in a move that will lead to breakdowns and disruption on an unprecedented scale.
RMT says that is an open secret across the job that senior managers do not believe that the Night Tube is deliverable on the 12th September without unleashing repeated chaos. As a result of the project being dumped on tube bosses on a political whim without proper planning the most basic preparation and planning has not been carried out, not least in terms of calculating and costing the additional staff that will be needed to deliver it without imosing rosters from hell on the existing workforce.
RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said;
“Despite all the bluster from Boris Johnson Londoner’s need to be aware that Night Tube was rushed and botched from the off and that is why five weeks before it starts staff are striking because they will not accept that their work/life balance should be wrecked to plug the gaping holes in staffing capacity that should have been dealt with from day one.
“It is a measure of the current shambles that no further talks are planned and staffing posts essential to delivering a safe extension of operating hours are still being axed. That is ridiculous.
“Millions of week day commuters, who fork out a fortune in fares, risk seeing their safety compromised and their services reduced to chaos so that a few thousand revellers can be shipped home in the early hours of Saturday and Sunday morning and experienced tube managers know that. We urgently need to get talks convened with tube professionals who understand the reasons behind a crisis which should never have been allowed to get this far. ”