Call For Tube Strikes To Be Banned.

15 April 2013, 11:36 | Updated: 15 April 2013, 11:43

A new report has called for strikes by Tube drivers to be banned.

Published by the Tory group on the London Assembly, it recommends compulsory mediation should be introduced to avoid disruptive action.

A survey of almost 300 Londoners to help launch the report found that half were in favour of some form of ban on Tube strikes.

The report said that Tube strikes cost the economy £48 million a day, estimating that industrial action between 2005 and 2009 cost £1 billion.

The Conservatives said that as well as banning strikes and replacing the right to strike with binding arbitration, a minimum of 50% plus one of all eligible union members should vote in favour of action before arbitration kicks in.

General secretary of The Rail Maritime and Transport union, Bob Crow, said of the strike ban call: "One of the first things fascist dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and Pinochet did when they seized power was to ban transport workers from taking strike action so the Tory group on the London Assembly find themselves in some high profile company on this one.

"This crowd have obviously over-dosed on their post-Thatcher adulation and are looking to ramp up the anti-union rhetoric in advance of the publicly financed funeral on Wednesday.

"Of course, banning the fundamental human right to withdraw your labour, a right that distinguishes a free workforce from forced labour, is all the rage on the far right and anyone stupid enough to try and embark on such a policy is doomed to failure."