Tube chiefs may boost pay offer

London Underground is considering an improved pay offer to staff in a bid to head off threatened strike action.

Tube chiefs are also willing to drop a "no strike" clause if the unions return to the negotiating table.

The Tube is threatened by a fresh wave of strikes after Aslef and the RMT, which represents about 10,000 staff, rejected the current three per cent pay offer and began balloting members with the recommendation that they support strike action. The results - both ballots are expected to endorse strike action - will be declared early next month with stoppages taking place from the middle of September.

Now LU is planning to offer an improved deal of 3.2 per cent and drop a demand that the unions pledge to take no action over any future wage negotiations.

Meanwhile, LU has written to all 16,000 employees saying they believe three per cent - backdated to April - is a good deal and that they intend to put the new rate, regardless of the unions' refusing the offer, into pay packets from the end of this month or early next.

An LU spokeswoman said: "Our offer is more than double the rate of inflation and we are writing to staff to say why we believe this is a good deal. We are having to do this by letter because we are not getting anywhere with the unions."

LU says three per cent would take the average Tube driver's salary to more than £31,000 a year and compares it with the wage of an experienced nurse in London - between £21,000 and £24,700 - an experienced firefighter on £25,563 and a teacher at the top of the main scale earning £28,818.

The unions say they decided to press ahead with the strike ballots after LU refused to go to mediation. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "The company has been spinning the lie that we have turned down an increased pay offer."

He said the deal was the "lowest pay offer of all the 33 train-operating companies in Britain". The two unions would combine any strike action in a move which is guaranteed to bring the entire network, used by more than three million passengers a day, to a stop.

Last month an RMT strike over safety concerns, which was backed by Aslef whose drivers refused to cross picket lines, prevented 90 per cent of trains operating.

The Tories have demanded the Government introduce a no-strike deal as a condition of the part-privatisation of the network. David Davis, shadow deputy prime minister, said: "Londoners already have to live with an Underground failing to provide a decent service. Industrial action would just be rubbing salt into the wounds of commuters."