THE 48-hour London Underground strike was suspended yesterday afternoon by both unions, the TSSA and RMT.
The strike, due to start last night at 9pm, was over plans to close every single ticket office and sack 960 staff.
London Underground said it had proposed two months of intensive talks with the unions, starting today.
The strike has now been suspended without any guarantee that the ticket offices will remain open or that the jobs will be saved.
Instead a ‘station by station review will take place’, where London Underground says that ‘some ticket offices may remain open’.
RMT General Secretary Bob Crow said: ‘After two days of intensive and detailed discussions through the offices of ACAS we have now received proposals that halt the implementation of the job cuts set out in the HR1 document which gives us the opportunity to discuss all of the issues away from the pressure cooker.
‘We now have a golden opportunity to look again in detail at all of the concerns we have raised about the impact of the cuts on our members and the services that they provide to Londoners. That is exactly what we have been calling for throughout this dispute.
‘RMT is happy to discuss any issues with LU through the machinery of negotiation and we are glad that we have now got back to where we should have been right at the start of this process.
‘It is unfortunate that we were forced and provoked into a dispute that we never wanted and we are now in a position to move on with the clear understanding that our action is suspended but if there is any further attempt to impose change from above the action will go back on.’
A TSSA spokesman said: ‘We have now agreed a process where all our serious concerns over safety and job losses will be seriously addressed through the normal channels.
‘We are obviously pleased that we have agreed this process, which will allow us to suspend our strike immediately, and cancel it later when the agreement reaches us in a formal document.’
Talks between the unions and LU have been taking place at ACAS for 11 days.
In a statement, ACAS said Tube bosses would be writing to the unions with proposals to end the dispute.
‘We are hopeful of a positive response so that the proposed industrial action will be withdrawn,’ it added.
