RMT Strike Activity on London Underground: Incidence, Dynamics and Causes

The London Underground is one of Britain’s most st ri ke-prone industries, with the threat and use of strike action by the National Union of Rail Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) a persistent feature of industrial relations during the past 10-15 years. Thus on a number of occasions st ri kes have paralysed sections of the tube network, inconvenienced up to 3 million commuters and caused millions of pounds damage to London’s economy. Not surprisingly such a combative approach has often been vilified by the popular media and Bori s Johnson, the new Conservative Party Mayor of London (who defeated Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone in the May 2008 Greater London Assembly elections), for whom it is the union’s ‘hard-left’ militant leaders who should be held entirely responsible for the high level of strike activity afflicting the Tube: Yet ironically the London Underground has been almost completely unexplored territory from within the field of industrial relations (apart from Darlington, 2001; 2007; 2009a; 2009b; London Assembly, 2006). This is remarkable considering the centrality of the tube network to the day-to-day functioning of the British economy and society, the evident importance of tube stations and depots as major workplaces in their own right, the relatively high level of strike action evident in recent years (in marked contrast to most other areas of employment), and the combative and left -wing form of trade unionism that the RMT has developed.