Train Drivers on the Central line will refuse to book on for duties booking on between 00:01 and 23:59 on Wednesday November 7th, as our fight for fair treatment at work continues.  In the four weeks since our solid strike on October 5th, management have made no new proposals and no further talks have been arranged.

ASLEF have kept in contact with ACAS and made it clear that we are ready to discuss the issues in dispute at any time, but senior management seem to hope that our members will simply give up if they refuse to budge. Next Wednesday they will find out just how wrong they are!

With a strike action also due to take place on the Piccadilly line, managements’ pig-headed intransigence will mean major disruption on the Underground next Wednesday. But the issues underlying this dispute, fair treatment at work and complying with agreements aren’t just confined to a couple of areas. Next week the ASLEF Executive Committee will discuss resolutions from our branches on the Hammersmith and City and Northern lines asking to be balloted for action with other branches set to follow.

Unless there is a rapid change of approach from management, working inside existing agreements instead of trying to circumvent or “reinterpret” them, then the likelihood is there will be a combine wide shutdown in the run up to Xmas.

Senior figures at TfL need to realise just how serious the industrial relations problems on London Underground have become and start to deal with them.  ASLEF does not want to be in a position where we are faced with dispute after dispute. We don’t want to see passenger journeys disrupted and our members having to lose money.

But we will not back down in the face of a management that refuses to deal with the issues our members raise and treats staff as if they were pieces of machinery.