Transport for London (TfL) Offer Drivers a Four Day Week
Transport for London (TfL) bosses have offered drivers a four-day working week, but trade unions have complained that the offer would lead to “longer shifts”. Last week, Transport for London (TfL) offered representatives from Aslef and RMT unions a shorter working week after the policy was put forward by Tube bosses to avoid strikes.
Last year, Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, started paving the way for a four-day week in the public sector.
Yet the version of the shorter working week presented to RMT bosses appears to have galvanised them against the idea – because it would compress five days’ work into four days instead of reducing working hours.
“RMT has campaigned for a four-day, 32-hour working week ever since the current 35-hour week was introduced,” union leaders wrote in a note to members that was posted on the RMT website this week.
Complaining that TfL’s four-day week proposal does not shorten their working hours, they explained: “Instead, the current 35-hour week is reorganised with longer shifts. More handle time and the squeezing of walking time and other non-driving time is proposed in order to shoehorn the same amount of driving into four days.”
Plans to put forward the controversial working time proposals as part of an anti-strike bargain were revealed by The Telegraph in November.
A letter from a TfL director to Aslef, seen by The Telegraph, pledged to “set out a proposal for delivering an average four-day working week” by January, on condition that unionised Tube drivers accepted a 3.8 per cent pay rise and called off “all pending industrial action”.
Aslef’s strikes, planned for Nov 7 and Nov 12, were suspended that same day. Yet Tube workers had already been handed a 5 per cent pay rise by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, earlier in 2024, costing the taxpayer £30 million and prompting accusations that he had found a “magic money tree”.
A TfL spokesman said: “We have set out to our unions how a four-day working week might work for train drivers.
“The changes would not require any changes to the number of contractual hours worked by drivers or any increase in drivers’ annual leave, and would improve reliability, improve our ability to flexibly deploy our drivers and enable us to offer a modern and efficient service while creating no additional costs.
“This work was a condition of the pay agreement that we came to with our unions last year, and details how we could make the changes to working patterns while ensuring that they benefit our customers as well as our colleagues.”
Negotiations with unions are ongoing, The Telegraph understands.
Finn Brennan, Aslef’s organiser on the Underground, said: “This is an example of management engaging with trade unions so that both staff and passengers get real benefits from the introduction of new technology and working practices.”
An RMT spokesman said: “We have received a proposal from London Underground and our members are considering its contents.”