The Elizabeth line could be hit by its first strike as a union began balloting its members in a dispute over pay on Friday.
The TSSA union says managers operating the line, which has clocked up 70 million journeys since it opened on May 24, are paid “significantly less” than others in similar roles.
The strike ballot is due to close on December 22. Two weeks’ notice of action has to be given – meaning walkouts could be co-ordinated with RMT walkouts at Network Rail and 14 other train companies in early January.
The Elizabeth line has come to the rescue of thousands of Londoners during the RMT Tube strikes this year and has also been able to continue operating, though with fewer services, during national rail strikes.
But a walkout by traffic managers, service infrastructure managers and incident response managers would stop services running, according to the TSSA, because their jobs are “safety critical”.
The “small group” of managers are employed by Rail for London Infrastructure (RfLI), a subsidiary of Transport for London.
They have been offered a four per cent pay rise. But workers at MTR – the outsourced part of the Elizabeth Line, which employs the train drivers – received an 8.2 per cent increase this year, Docklands Light Railway (DLR) staff received 9.25 per cent and staff at London Overground have been offered 6.5 per cent.
Staff at MTR, in similar roles to TSSA members in RfLI, are on salaries up to £30,000 more than their RfLi equivalents, according to the union, the biggest in TfL.
The TSSA said it had moved to ballot members after talks at Acas failed to achieve a breakthrough. An “indicative ballot” of affected staff last month saw 93 per cent in favour of taking strike action and almost 97 per cent in favour of taking action short of a strike, with a turnout of 90 per cent.
Mel Taylor, TSSA organiser, said: “This dispute is fundamentally about unfairness and inequality in pay rates across the TfL network. RfLI need to change their Scrooge employment habits and make 2022 a happy Christmas.
“The Elizabeth Line is a brilliant addition to London’s transport services. Our members have years of experience and work on the most modern railway in the country yet are paid significantly less than staff doing similar roles across the network – including colleagues on the very same line. These are first class services provided by first class workers with second class pay.
“Our members feel very strongly about their treatment when it comes to pay, but health and safety and the threat to pensions are also issues in this dispute. Low pay is leading to high staff turnover, lack of fully trained staff, and reliance on overtime to run core services.
“Strike action by these workers would bring services across the Elizabeth Line to a standstill. There’s no need for it to come to that if RfLI can see sense and produce a fair offer which doesn’t continue to leave their staff the poor relations of the network.”
TfL said it had offered managers four per cent for 2022 and a 4.4 per cent increase for 2023.
Howard Smith, director of the Elizabeth line, said: “Strikes are bad news for everyone, and we urge TSSA to work with us and avoid this industrial action.”
