Londoners were on Thursday warned that further Tube strikes were likely as they faced a second day this week battling to get to work.
Action by the RMT again brought the Underground to a near-total standstill, with more than 200 stations closed and rush-hour chaos as passengers tried to board packed buses, queued for Boris bikes and taxis or faced gridlock on the roads.
Transport for London described the 24-hour walkout as “completely unnecessary” and warned that the travel misery was expected to last until mid-morning Friday, with no trains until at least 8am.
But the RMT, which called its 10,000 members out on strike over the axing of 600 station staff posts and the threat to pensions, said it was “standing firm”.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said his members were “not prepared to take a hammering” to pay for the funding crisis at TfL that caused the staffing reductions and review of the staff pensions scheme, which costs TfL about £375 million a year.
“The fight goes on and our executive will consider the next steps in the campaign,” Mr Lynch said. Thursday’s 24-hour strike followed a similar walkout on Tuesday.
Eight lines were suspended while the District, Central and Northern lines were only able to run “shuttle” services in the suburbs where tracks and stations are above ground.
There were big queues for buses into central London from 6am. At London Bridge, there was frustration at the lack of services. One passenger said: “This is totally unacceptable.”
Huge taxi rank queues formed at Waterloo station from 7am with some waiting up to an hour.
Jenny Cox, 44, had travelled from Guildford and needed to get to Covent Garden where she is a receptionist.
She said: “I can’t believe this strike has gone ahead for the second time this week. I thought after Tuesday it would be sorted. I did have some sympathy with the strikers but that’s gone now. The fares are high and the service is terrible.
“They have driverless trains on the DLR and that seems safe and works. Maybe we should go that way. We can’t go on like this.”
IT worker Fotos Constantinou, 28, said: “It’s a nightmare — how can a union hold us to ransom like this?”
Ben Hughes, 31, a construction worker, said: “I’ve had enough of this. In my game I have to get to the building site, I can’t work from home.”
Andy Lord, TfL’s chief operating officer, apologised to passengers. “I understand they will be frustrated by this strike action, but urge them not to take it out on those who are trying to help,” he said.
“We haven’t proposed any changes to pensions or terms and conditions, and nobody has lost or will lose their jobs because of the proposals we have set out, so this action is completely unnecessary.”
He said TfL was “urging the RMT to talk to us so we can find a resolution to this dispute which has already damaged London’s recovery from the pandemic”.
RMT member Daniel Randall, manning a picket line at Oxford Circus, told the Standard: “It’s about jobs, it’s about pensions, it’s about conditions.
“It’s really about the future of public transport in London — do we want a properly funded, properly staffed system, or something that Sadiq Khan has started to call ‘managed decline’ with ongoing cuts over a number of years?”
“Nightmare”: a queue for buses at Waterloo as the RMT on Thursday staged its second 24-hour strike this week
Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), as commuters face another day of travel chaos on Thursday due to a fresh strike by thousands of workers which will cripple Tube services in London.
