TUBE UNION RMT today repeated the demand for an end to the London Underground cuts programme as the system grinds towards the end of a week of chaos that has seen repeated failures on the Jubilee, Metropolitan, Central and Victoria Line’s as a combination of cuts, infrastructure failures and mismanagement from the top conspire to drag the network into a spiral of failure.

This morning the Jubilee Line went down due to fleet and signal failures and there was further disruption on the Metropolitan Line after it totally closed in yesterday evenings rush hour through the City.

On Sunday the new rosters that will leave a third of London’s tube stations unstaffed for part of the working day are being bulldozed through despite growing evidence that de-staffing is turning the network in to a criminals’ paradise.

RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said:

“Passengers have experienced the worst week of chaos so far this year as the infra-structure fails under the combined pressure of staffing and maintenance cuts and gross mismanagement right from the top.

“On the network, the reality of the hidden drive towards de-staffing has left many stations without a single member of staff and the new rosters coming in from Sunday show that London Underground is planning to leave a third of stations unstaffed for part of the day. So much for the Mayor’s promise that “no station will be left unstaffed at any time.”

“The Mayor cannot wash his hands of the on-going crisis on the tube that has developed on his watch. 1000 days into his leadership of this City he has failed to have a single meeting with the tube unions and instead of resorting to puffing up ludicrous suggestions like driverless operation he should be talking to the people at the sharp end who know what’s going on.

“Boris Johnson opposed the cuts to ticket offices before the Mayoral election because he knew that was what the voters wanted. Nothing has changed since then and there is absolutely no excuse for him to sit back and watch while the tube system is turned into the playground for thugs and vandals that has been so graphically exposed in recent weeks .”