RMT

Some 1,000 track, signal and train maintenance staff working for Tube Lines, the contractor responsible for running the Piccadilly, Northern and Jubilee lines, were due to walk out. The strike would have meant that any signalling problems - a daily occurance - or track faults would have closed down the lines.

London Underground workers on the District and Northern lines will begin a 24 hour strike on August 22nd.

More than 120 members of the Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union will walk out on 25th August. The workers want a higher basic wage than the £6.37 per hour which the staff, who work for contractor OCS, receive.

RMT members at the company will down tools between noon on Wednesday August 20th and noon on Saturday August 23rd. The second 72-hour strike will begin at noon on Wednesday September 3rd and end at noon on Saturday September 6th.

Around 130 RMT members working for the transnational subsidiary contracted to put up posters on London’s Tube, are to strike for four days from Thursday over a sub-inflation pay offer that would erode the living standards of already low-paid staff.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) announced yesterday that 12,000 of its members would refuse to work as Network Rail executives had "scuppered" negotiations. The strike will affect Network Rail's repair schedule.

The union is gathering evidence that cleaners have been bullied, harassed and threatened with the sack and with illegal punitive deductions from their wages if they take strike action.

Faced with the prospect of three days of strike action from 18:30 on Sunday, London Underground has abandoned plans that the union had described as a fundamental attack on Tube safety standards and casualisation of safety critical work.

The strike ballot saw 1,673 members vote for action with 333 voting against. The ballot result opens the way for joint action with fellow Tube union TSSA, whose own members voted for action earlier this month. The unions are opposing management attacks on safety standards and the casualisation of safety-critical work (details in notes below).

The action at Edinburgh's Waverly station was taken in a dispute over the provision of cover for breaks. David Simpson, of Network Rail in Scotland, said the "deliberately disruptive, unprovoked action" was "completely unacceptable".

Ian MacIntyre, the RMT's regional organiser for Scotland, was reported as saying: "Our members took the action in the interests of safety.