Tube staff to stage 48 hour strike

London tube workers are due to hold another 48-hour strike next week in a long-running dispute over ticket office closures.

The RMT union has ordered its members not to go to work from 9pm on Tuesday until 9pm on Thursday next week, reports the Metro.

The planned strike coincides with separate walk-outs by council workers and civil servants nationwide in separate disputes over pay, jobs and cuts.

The union said that although some limited progress has been made its executive has taken the view that it is not enough after months of negotiations and that the only option is to move back into a further round of strike action.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "RMT negotiators have made every effort in the long-running talks to resolve a range of issues that impact on our members jobs, their pay and working conditions and the safety of the services that they provide to the travelling public.

"The cuts, currently being bulldozed through, would de-staff whole areas of the Tube system at a time of surging passenger demand and would make evacuation and other basic safety procedures a physical impossibility."

There have already been two separate strikes since the dispute began in February.

According to the BBC, Transport for London hopes to save £50m a year by closing ticket offices and cutting jobs.

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