LONDON — As London’s subway system reopened Thursday after the second one-day strike in a week, Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the job actions and urged union leaders to bring them to a halt, according to the Associated Press.
“The strike in London is totally and utterly unnecessary. It has no justification whatever on any objective basis,” Blair said at a news conference in Blackpool, northern England, where his Labor Party was meeting.
“I hope the union leadership will realize it has no support among the public at large. I suspect it has declining support among their own membership,” Blair said. “It won’t make any difference to the way that either the government conducts its policy or the Underground is run.”
The capital returned to normal Thursday morning after the second 24-hour strike, which had forced hundreds of thousands of commuters to walk to work or wait hours for overcrowded buses.
London First, a business group, estimated that Wednesday’s strike would cost London’s economy 60 million pounds (US$93 million), and warned that such job actions badly tarnish the city’s reputation as an international business center.
Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union and the train drivers’ union, ASLEF, walked out at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT) Tuesday and stayed off the job until the same time Wednesday. Still, train service did not get back to normal until early Thursday morning.
The strike — a repeat of last week’s 24-hour walkout — was called to protest a 3 percent pay increase, which the unions call too low. That increase boosted the annual salary of train drivers to 31,274 pounds (US$48,474), but the unions want an extra 2.7 percent.
Union leaders have called for independent mediation of their demand but Blair said his government would not intervene in the dispute.