Tube drivers have been offered a four-day week by Sadiq Khan’s Transport for London in return for calling off strikes. The Telegraph has the story.
A letter from Nick Dent, the TfL Director, to the Aslef trade union on Tuesday pledged to “set out a proposal for delivering an average four-day working week”.
The condition for opening discussions on a four-day working week was accepting a 3.8% pay rise and calling off “all pending industrial action”. Aslef’s strikes, which had been planned for November 7th and November 12th, were suspended that day.
In January, Tube workers were given a 5% pay rise by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, that cost the taxpayer £30 million, prompting accusations that he had found a “magic money tree”.
The Conservatives called the deal a “total capitulation” to the unions, and questioned how much the plans would cost London taxpayers.
Tube drivers agreed to accept a pay rise that will take their salaries to just shy of £70,000 per year, and after the new Labour Government offered public sector workers pay deals worth about £10 billion.
Tube drivers currently work a five-day, 35-hour week. The four-day week plan would see no overall change in working hours, but sources said that in practice it would mean longer working days.
Underground drivers also enjoy 43 days holiday a year, thanks to a previous deal that saw time spent on shift but not working rolled up into extra holidays.
Walkouts by the RMT, the other Tube drivers’ union, were suspended last week after shop stewards said they had secured a “significantly improved offer” on pay and working conditions. No details of that offer have yet emerged into the public domain.
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