“I don’t support strikes” but important to understand staff concerns, Khan says

Sadiq Khan has said he does not support strikes but stressed the need to empathise with the concerns of transport workers amid further industrial action on London’s tube and bus networks.

Members of Unite and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) working on London’s tube and overground are taking strike action today, along with Unite members working on certain bus routes.

Speaking to Sky News today, the London mayor said: “I don’t support strikes. I think strikes are a sign of failure generally speaking, but it’s important to understand and have empathy with why transport workers are frustrated and worried.”

Khan added: “What I’m saying to the government, in a respectful way, is you don’t get a national recovery without a London recovery. You don’t get a London recovery without [Transport for London] firing on all cylinders. And they shouldn’t be punishing hard-working transport workers.”

He continued: “The reason why the RMT are striking today in London are their concerns about the government unilaterally changing the terms and conditions. I don’t want that to happen. The trade unions don’t want that to happen.

“But strikes isn’t the answer today. The answer today is the trade unions working with me and others, businesses, Londoners, to lobby the government for a decent deal.

“Caught in the crossfire today is not the government or Grant Shapps. It’s commuters, it’s businesses, it’s people who need the tubes to get to their place of work or to get to an appointment.”

“We’re on the same side here, whether you’re a business who needs TfL firing on all cylinders, whether you’re a commuter who needs to use the tubes today or whether you’re transport workers, one of the transport workers, who wants to make sure their terms aren’t unilaterally changed,” he added.

The mayor said he was concerned that the government was “almost deliberating provoking” strike action in London and called on trade unions, businesses and Londoners to work with him to lobby ministers to make sure “any deal they do with TfL doesn’t have conditions attached that damage our recovery”.

On the number of public transport strikes that have taken place during his time as mayor, Khan said: “I don’t resile from saying all strikes are a sign of failure, and the aspiration should be for zero strikes.

“And before the pandemic, we’d managed to reduce the number of strikes in London since I became mayor by more than 70% by working with trade unions.”

“The only reason for these strikes in recent weeks in London is because of the conditions the government is trying to attach to a funding deal, and the trade unions are concerned about the consequences of those conditions on their members,” the mayor declared.