London Subway Strikes Canceled, Averting Wimbledon Traffic Woes
The U.K.’s Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union has called off strikes by London Underground drivers which would have coincided with an influx of thousands of tennis fans converging on London for the second week of the Wimbledon tennis championships.
“The Tube strikes planned for next week are now off,” the RMT said in a statement on its website.
The industrial actions, scheduled for June 27 and 29, and July 1, were planned to protest against the dismissal of a union activist, Arwyn Thomas, who was fired for “unacceptable behaviour towards his colleagues,” according to an e-mailed statement from Transport for London last night. RMT had said Thomas was dismissed for his union activities, according to TfL.
An employment tribunal on June 22 found that while London Underground was entitled to discipline Thomas, the sanction of dismissal was “too severe,” TfL said in an e-mailed statement. TfL said in the statement it re-employed Thomas “with a number of conditions that recognize the seriousness of his offence.”
The conditions include ending all industrial action related to the dispute and an agreement from the RMT that any future cases will “follow the normal processes for resolving individual disputes,” before industrial action is proposed or balloted, TFL said in the statement.
The RMT workers first took industrial action on Thomas’s dismissal for six hours between 9 p.m. local time on June 19 and 3 a.m. on June 20, coinciding with the start of the U.K. Grand Slam tennis tournament which ends on July 3.
To contact the reporter on this story: Blanche Gatt in London at bgatt@bloomberg.net
To contact the reporter on this story: David Altaner in London at daltaner@bloomberg.net
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