Enlarge imageBy Katie Allen
LONDON (Reuters) - Tube workers have called off a planned New Year’s Eve strike, averting travel chaos, after reaching a deal with managers over hours, pay and conditions.
Signals and line control staff had voted overwhelmingly to strike on December 31, a day when the capital’s creaking transport system is always packed with revellers, as well as January 4.
"There will be no strike on New Year’s Eve or on January 4," a spokesman for the RMT union told Reuters.
Managers for London Underground, the world’s oldest city subway network, failed to end a long-running dispute with workers on Thursday but Friday’s last-ditch talks ended with new deals on pay, working hours and job security, the union said.
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"This is a fantastic deal which puts our members at the top of the industrial pay league in Britain," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said.
London Underground declined immediate comment.
The deal means there will be no compulsory job losses for the signals and line control staff and shifts will stay at a maximum of 11 hours, not 12 as London Underground had proposed, the union said.
The union had said a strike would affect the entire network and mean the underground system would have been "as good as closed down" causing transport chaos in the capital.
Separately, London Underground was running a special service on the line which goes to London’s Heathrow Airport as workers from another union walked out in support of a driver who was demoted for passing four red signals.
