By RORY TINGLE, HOME AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT and JAKE HOLDEN, UK NEWS REPORTER Published: 14:14 BST, 18 May 2026 | Updated: 15:18 BST, 18 May 2026
Two 24-hour strikes planned by Tube drivers this week have been called off at the last minute. Militant members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) were due to walk out at 12 noon tomorrow and again on Thursday in a dispute over the working week.Transport for London (TfL) wants to move £72,000-a-year Tube drivers to a four-day week lasting 35 hours rather than 36. However, the RMT's hard-Left boss Eddie Dempsey claimed the plan could increase fatigue and compromise safety. A union spokesman called it a 'fake four-day week' that could result in 'reduced flexibility over shift patterns' and longer shifts. Today, the union said it had suspended the strikes planned for this week and June 16 and 18. But it announced new 24-hour strike dates of June 2 and 4 if the dispute remains unresolved. 'At the 11th hour the employer has shifted its position allowing us to further explore our members' concerns around the imposition of new rosters, fatigue and safety issues,' a spokesman said. 'The dispute is not over and more strike action will follow if we fail to make sufficient progress.'TfL has insisted the changes are voluntary and called the walkouts 'absolutely unnecessary'. Closure signs at a London Underground station during the previous Tube strike last month Nick Dent, director of customer operations for London Underground, said: 'We are pleased that RMT has withdrawn its planned industrial action this week. This is good news for London.'Our proposal for a voluntary four-day week is designed to improve both work-life balance for drivers and the reliability of service for customers. We look forward to further discussions on the implementation of these proposals with all of our trade unions.'Rival union Aslef has accepted the new shift patterns, which would cut the average driver's working week from 36 to 35 hours and give drivers an extra 35 days off a year. Before the first walkouts last month, an Aslef spokesman described them as 'the first strike in the history of the trade union movement designed to stop people having a shorter working week and more time off'. Mr Dempsey, the RMT's general secretary, is a union veteran who still lives in a council home despite now earning more than £100,000-a-year.Shortly after his election last year, it emerged that he had visited the separatist Donbas region of Ukraine in 2015, not long after Vladimir Putin's first invasion of the country. There, he posed for photographs with the pro-Putin warlord Aleksey Mozgovoy, a commander in the 'Ghost Brigade' of pro-Russian separatists branded a 'terrorist organisation' by Ukraine's Supreme Court. RMT Union chief Eddie Dempsey visiting Aleksey Mozgovoy, paramilitary leader in the pro-Russian militias during the war in eastern UkraineDuring one rant in 2014, he urged hard-Left activists to back the pro-Putin 'anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine' against 'the Western governments' backing for the far-Right regime in Kyiv'. Mr Dempsey also signed a letter from the notorious Stop the War coalition, which criticised Nato for showing 'disdain for Russian concerns' in Ukraine at the start of the war. An RMT spokesman previously said the union 'does not support either Vladimir Putin or his actions in Ukraine' and Mr Dempsey said it 'fully agrees' with its position. Ed Richardson, programme director for transport at BusinessLDN, said: 'Businesses and Londoners will welcome the decision to call off these Tube strikes at the eleventh hour.'But many firms will already have lost out through cancelled bookings and reservations so it's now vital that both sides come to a longer-term resolution.'With London heading into a busy summer, avoiding further strikes will be vital to help keep the capital's economy moving forward.'
