The Big City

The underground train drivers in London are having a strike on New Year’s Eve. It has been a great London tradition for tube travel to be free on 31 December and it really adds to the pleasure of living in London. The strike is being called by the RMT union because they say they are worried about safety at tube stations because the tube management want fewer staff in ticket offices and more on the platforms. I went through Brixton tube station today. The station office had three men it it with their feet up, chatting and laughing, not doing much at all as far as I could see. No wonder they object to plans for them to be out of the office and working. I reckon if we had a ballot of Londoners asking whether the entire Tube workforce should be sacked and replaced it’d only be employees of London Undergound who’d vote ‘No’.