TSSA News Release

It came from the TSSA rail union which announced a strike ballot starting today in protest at the Mayor’s plans to axe 800 jobs by cutting opening hours during the evenings and at weekends across the network.

Because of legal safety rules for staffing underground stations, union leader Gerry Doherty said the cuts will hit overground stations in the suburbs much harder than those in the inner city.

"The irony of all this for Boris is he is having to hit the Tory heartlands the hardest to make cuts that are being imposed on him by George Osborne at the Treasury.

"He was actually elected promising to scrap ticket office cuts planned by Ken and, to be fair, he did just that. Now he is planning to go much further than Ken and this will cost him voters where he most needs them, in the Tory shires."

He predicted that the cuts, which mean some offices not opening at all at weekends and closing from 7.00pm in the evenings, will hit the end of the Metropolitan line in Herts and the end of the Central Line in Essex the hardest.

He revealed that in the six months ending in March 2010, LU figures showed that overground stations were left unstaffed on 439 seperate eight hours shifts on the District, Central, Metropolitan, Northern and Hammersmith lines, the worst station being Mill Hill East, left unstaffed for a total of 95 shifts.

"This is going to get much worse if Boris gets away with these cuts," he added. "We need fully staffed stations to protect the public, particularly women and the elderly, who feel very vulnerable when traveling late at night."

The ballot among 1,000 booking clerks and managers will finish on Wednesday August 18. Any strike action would begin in early September and would be co-ordinated with the blue collar RMT union which is also balloting over the job losses.