The last-minute ending of the Tube strike was unequivocally good news for London. But as this paper observed yesterday, the way in which it ended is altogether more problematic. Twenty minutes before the strike was due to start, Mayor Sadiq Khan miraculously found £30 million down the back of the City Hall sofa — no one has a better explanation — and bought off the RMT union.
Trouble is, the other Tube union, Aslef, had accepted the offer of a five per cent pay rise in good faith on the basis that this was all that TfL had to offer. This assurance turns out to have been false. Apparently there was a mayoral money tree waiting to be shaken. So, by bribing the RMT with an unexpected £30 million, the Mayor has bought off the strike on the basis that if you are uncompromising enough as a union then you will be rewarded. Aslef, which had acted with restraint in its demands, now looks less effective than the combative RMT. This is not, to put it mildly, in the interests of London’s Tube users.
It is not a good way to resolve industrial disputes in the public sector. And when the Mayor says that the deal “shows what can be achieved by engaging and working with trade unions and transport staff rather than working against them”, he is simply wrong. It is only a matter of time before the next dispute. How many other tens of millions does he have squirrelled away to resolve that?
The alternative to exceeding the above-inflation five per cent pay rise on offer would have been a more assertive response to the strike threat — namely, to invoke the legislation passed last year which requires unions to provide 40 per cent of normal service during a strike. Certainly this would not be as good as a full service, but it would have signalled to the RMT that Transport for London is serious in working within its means. Unless, however, the Mayor has a more simple goal: easing his way into the mayoral election by averting a strike. Or he is working on the basis that there will be a change of government, and a Labour administration would be open-handed. We suggest that this might not be the best way to run industrial relations and it doesn’t bode well for the future.
End pupil hunger
Nonetheless, this paper is more happy to give credit where it’s due and we applaud the Mayor’s promise to provide free school meals to all primary school pupils if he wins another term — and his Tory rival, Susan Hall, has promised to do so as long as the cost-of-living crisis continues.
The initiative was originally for one year and followed this paper’s award-winning School Hunger special investigation last year, which drew attention to the bleak situation of children from poor families who were not eligible for free meals. It is a good policy that deserves our support.
