On Thursday London Underground bosses said they would be consulting Tube Unions on “reductions in non-operational functions” which would affect around 400 permanent employees in back-office roles and “a similar number” of posts which are either vacant “or filled by non-permanent staff”.
London Underground Managing Director Mike Brown said: “Like all organisations we continue to face financial pressures and have a duty to be as effective and efficient as we can be. London Underground is vital to London and the wider UK economy and we must have an organisation fit to deliver our priorities – excellent daily customer services and the delivery of the biggest Tube Investment Programme in our history.”
RMT general secretary Bob Crow said the announcement “means that another 800 jobs are on the line with even more to go, and it underlines the depth of the crisis that the Mayor and LUL have plunged the Tube network into.”
The row comes while the Mayor, Transport for London and Tube Unions are in dispute over plans to reduce the hours of ticket offices on the Tube network. That dispute has already seen strike action in protest at the changes.
Mr Crow added: “We now have 1,600 jobs under threat even before the government’s spending review, and LUL has made it clear that even more will be in the firing line when Peter Hendy’s Project Horizon review is published next year.”
