London’s underground Tube railway was suspended Tuesday, the capital’s transport body said, as staff strike over fears of job cuts and pension changes due to a funding crisis.
“All tube lines are suspended,” a Transport for London spokesman told AFP, as the organisation urged commuters to work from home or use alternative public transport.
Members of the RMT transport trade union are staging separate walkouts on Tuesday and Thursday in a bitter dispute that has sparked travel chaos, with knock-on effects also expected on Wednesday and Friday.
The action comes as the British government handed TfL a new financial lifeline last week after Covid lockdowns shattered revenues.
The RMT warns that any spending cutbacks as a result of the deal will lead to hundreds of job losses, reductions in pensions and affected working conditions.
London mayor “Sadiq Khan should be standing up to Tory ministers who want to needlessly attack jobs, pensions and conditions of key transport workers”, said RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch. “It is this political failure that has left tube workers with no choice but to strike this week.”
Taxpayers will provide TfL with £200 million ($270 million, 240 million euros) in a fourth extraordinary funding settlement that helps TfL through to June 24, the government had announced Friday.
Britain has now provided TfL with close to £5.0 billion in emergency funding since March 2020 when the UK first went into lockdown.
TfL also runs bus and overground railway services throughout London.
Its revenue crashed by 95 percent at the height of the first coronavirus wave in 2020, while in recent months the Tube has been plagued by strikes.
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