Gig-goers warned to plan ahead as Tube strikes planned for London next week

nme.com:

London Underground for two days next week.The RMT Union confirmed on Thursday (February 24) that its 10,000 members would strike next Tuesday (March 1) and Thursday (March 3) in response to what it sees as a threat to jobs and pensions.Talks aimed at averting the strike failed, according to the RMT.The strikes are planned to start at one minute past midnight on March 1 and March 3 respectively, and will each last 24 hours.Tube chiefs have warned commuters to expect “severe disruption across all Tube lines” with little or no service across the network.They’ve also warned that the disruption will have a knock on impact on Wednesday and Friday, when morning rush hour services are expected to also be “severely impacted”.RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “Our members will be taking strike action next week because a financial crisis at London Underground has been deliberately engineered by the Government to drive a cuts’ agenda which would savage jobs, services, safety and threaten their working conditions and‎ pensions.

The sheer scale of that threat was confirmed in talks on Wednesday.“These are the very same transport staff praised as heroes for carrying London through covid for nearly two years, often at serious personal risk, who now have no option but to strike to defend their livelihoods.“The politicians need to wake up to the fact that transport staff will not pay the price for this cynically engineered crisis.