{"id":53072,"date":"2024-03-21T20:00:15","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T20:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=53072"},"modified":"2024-03-21T19:02:21","modified_gmt":"2024-03-21T19:02:21","slug":"london-trams-strikes-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=53072","title":{"rendered":"London Trams strikes announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

Services on London Trams \u2013 which were already set to be disrupted owing to engineering works from the end of this month \u2013 are set to be further after it was announced that members from Unite the Union who maintain the trams and infrastructure will be going on strike. The first of these strikes will commence on Sunday 24th<\/sup> March and last until the early hours of Thursday 28th<\/sup> March, which leads directly into the planning engineering works which get underway on Friday 29th<\/sup> March.<\/p>\n

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The reason for the calling of the strike relates to pay but is not as simple as demands for a percentage pay increase. Engineers who work for London Trams are said to be angry that staff who perform similar roles on London Underground (who require the same qualifications) earn up to \u00a310,000 extra per year.<\/p>\n

Unite allege that this disparity is caused staffing shortages on the trams as worked leave as soon as a higher paid job becomes available on the London Underground.<\/p>\n

Negotiations have said to have been taking place for over five years to sort out the situation of the engineer contracts \u2013 they are on office worker contracts although fulfill technical roles. Unite say that this has negatively impacted their pay and also prevented the workers from collectively negotiating pay as a distinct bargaining group. TfL are said to have agreed last year to change the workers contracts but have so far failed to implement this.<\/p>\n

Bruce Swann, Unite Regional Officer, said: \u201cThe entire employment situation of these workers is a mess. While TfL might claim this is the fault of historic mistakes, Unite believes it is simply trying to continue to run these services on the cheap at the expense of these workers. TfL needs to resolve the massive pay disparity and other issues, or this dispute will continue to escalate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Navid Golshan, General Manager for London Trams, said: \u201cWe urge Unite the Union to continue to work with us to find a resolution and call this strike off.\u00a0 Customers planning to use London Trams services are urged to check before they travel, allow extra time for their journeys, and check the TfL website or the TfL Go app for the latest travel information.”<\/p>\n

The first strike in this dispute will start at 2000 on 24th<\/sup> March and continue until 0600 on 28th<\/sup> March. During this period the following service is expected to run:<\/p>\n

Sunday 24th<\/sup> March<\/strong><\/p>\n