Tube Strike continues - but service not at standstill

As negotiations continue with both the RMT and London Underground blaming each other for the break down in talks, it's good to know that seven of the eleven Tube lines have some service. Bear in mind that although the strike officially ends at 7pm tonight, you can expect disruption to the service until tomorrow morning.

However, the good thing is that many Aslef drivers turned up for work and some of RMT's own members broke the strike and reported in for duty. Aslef, which represents 2,000 tube drivers, said that the strike action was inappropriate when progress was being made in negotiations. Aslef's general secretary Keith Norman said "Our members are not involved in this dispute. We believe it can be solved through negotiation. The fact that so many Aslef drivers have turned up for work is highly significant. In the past they would have refused to cross picket lines".


In the meantime people have been using the net in various ways to cope with the strike. There's was a Punch Bob Crow page if you want to give the RMT leader a thick ear or a black eye (sadly the link doesn't work anymore & has been taken over by some spam).

More positively, Paul Clarke was ferrying Londoners about the city for free rides on his motorbike. He set up something called Tweetbike on Twitter and was taking requests for riders across the city, as they tweeted him for rides using the hashtage #tweetbike. Lisa Deveney described her ride to the BBC.

The good thing was that London wasn't bought to a standstill and commuters and many staff did their best to get into work and get people moving. Good luck on your journey today and I'd like to thank all of the staff who crossed picket lines to get things moving yesterday and today. Hopefully once BoJo and BoCro stop blaming each other for talks failing, stop talking about talking and sign some deal, we'll get back to normal.

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Thursday, June 11, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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