Management are displaying a level of coquettishness similar to the one that inspired Andrew Marvell to write “To his coy mistress” in the mid-17th century and the one I encountered at the 1977 Dagenham Priory Comprehensive post-O level disco while trying to explore the inside of Linda Coggins’s bra.  Despite insisting on Monday that they wouldn’t be available for talks on Tuesday it seems that management found a “window” in their diary and everyone trooped back to ACAS.   I’ve not heard how far talks progressed but obviously they failed and so we will be on strike tomorrow.

Apparently there are suggestions that the strike is political and that the unions called the strike purely as retaliation to the Tories winning the General Election.  Not only is that laughable it’s not even original, Network Rail accused RMT and TSSA of exactly the same thing when they were threatening to strike in May, LUL are so bereft of ideas they’re using second hand smears!

As usual there are plenty of rumours going around the mess rooms, one I’ve heard is that out of the five depots on the Central Line only two would be getting Night Tube shifts and one of those would be mine.  Not only would this mean that less than half of the TOps on the Central Line would get the bonuses on offer but also that TOps at those two depots would work overnight far more often than management’s estimate of seven times a year.  Add in that at LES we also work Saturdays on the W&C and it means that a weekend where we didn’t work would become an extremely rare thing.  As I said it’s only a rumour but it’s an example of how TOps feel that this whole thing has been badly planned and why we want to know all the details of management’s proposals before we agree to anything.

I’ve no idea what will happen tonight, at what time stations will start closing or when trains will start being put away but as usual the media has confused “staff will not book on after” with “staff will stop working at”.  As far as I’m concerned I will start work around 3pm and carry on until my finish time around 10:30pm unless Wood Lane tells me to stop.

Let's hope things get better....