At Stratford station in London on November 10, 2022 (AFP / Daniel LEAL)
Millions of people saw their journeys severely disrupted on Thursday by a new near-total strike on the London Underground, as social unrest intensifies in the United Kingdom and Europe in the face of inflation.
The oldest metro in the world was almost completely paralyzed on Thursday, with most lines completely at a standstill and some with very reduced service.
Only the very young Elizabeth Line, inaugurated in May and partially automated, was operating almost normally, with only a few stations closed in the heart of the capital.
The London Underground normally carries up to 5 million passengers a day but has been rocked by several strikes in recent months.
If some Londoners have opted for teleworking, the practice of which has spread widely since the Covid-19 pandemic, many have fallen back on the bike, the car but also the buses, which were crowded on Thursday.
In the northeast of the capital, at Blackhorse Road station on the Victoria line, Daniel Osei, 26, who works in a school in the Fulham district, supports the strike in principle but believes that “there are really had a lot” since the spring. “It seems that it does not have as much impact on the government” and the budget it allocates to TfL (Transport for London) “as on the users”, he notes.
– “All worried” –
Pema Monaghan, a 28-year-old writer, says she supports the strikers, even if her travels for the day will be complicated. “They defend their working conditions and their pay. We are all worried about our pay” given the inflation of more than 10% in the United Kingdom, she testifies.
Inside the Tottenham Court Road tube station in London on November 10, 2022 (AFP / Daniel LEAL)
Further west of the city, at Kentish Town station on the Northern line, Nicco Hogg, 36, and transport controller was in the middle of an interminable journey: “the strike adds 90 minutes to my journey” which will take about three hours to reach his place of work.
“I took the car, the train and now I have to pedal,” he lists, his bike in hand.
The national union RMT (Rail, Maritime and Transport), which called for a strike, is opposed in particular to the elimination of 600 jobs in metro stations and to a project by TfL to modify its financing of the retirement pensions of agents, according to a press release.
Weighed down by the pandemic, TfL concluded a financing agreement with the government at the end of August, which does not, however, meet the needs of the public operator.
“These attacks (on the status of employees) are deeply unfair and completely unnecessary,” said the union, which claims to have made proposals to suspend the strike which were rejected by TfL.
– Record inflation in Europe –
“TfL is unnecessarily attacking the pensions and wages of our members, which Unite simply cannot accept,” said Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, who also called for the strike. .
“No proposals to change the pension system or the conditions have been made,” said Glynn Barton, a TfL official, in a statement on Tuesday after negotiations with the unions failed.
This strike also comes at a time when the United Kingdom is experiencing a proliferation of social movements in a context of record inflation and a crisis in the cost of living.
On Wednesday, nurses voted in an unprecedented nationwide strike to demand better wages and around 100,000 civil servants voted to strike on Thursday, a move that could affect border control officers, driver’s license examiners and drivers alike. employment agency staff.
Next week a walkout is planned at Heathrow Airport while train drivers’ union Aslef has scheduled another strike on November 26, among other moves.
The same demands agitate other European countries, also crossed by social movements, like Paris, where the metro is also very disrupted Thursday by a strike at the call of all the unions who are demanding increases of salary.
© 2022 AFP
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