Snow Day U Turn for Tube Workers

Mayor Boris Johnson appears to have made a U turn with his comments about docking the pay of London Underground workers who couldn't get to work last Monday due to the snow.

Boris said he had "absolutely no intention" of penalising tube staff after the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) revealed yesterday that ticket staff and other operational staff working for the Tube had been told they would have to take a day's holiday or lose a day's wages for failing to turn up to work last Monday.


Weirdly today's Metro hasn't caught up with Boris' latest words and seems to under the belief that workers may still get their pay docked.


However, from The Guardian's report a spokesman for the mayor said: "The mayor has absolutely no intention of penalising anyone who failed to get to work due to last week's exceptional weather. More than 95% of London Underground's operational staff made it to work last Monday and the mayor is grateful for their efforts to get as much of the tube running as was possible in the circumstances.

"Around 100 employees were unable to make it to work that day and their managers are simply following normal procedure by making sure that all absences were due to the weather."

Gerry Doherty, from TSSA, said: "This amounts to a U-turn. We are delighted that the mayor has seen common sense on this issue. Staff should not be penalised because of his decisions and we welcome the fact that he has now recognised the justice of their case."

I must thank Jonin60Seconds for the Twitter inspired Snow Fail Whale at the beginning of this post, and it looks like with Boris's latest change of mind, an older transport Fail Whale is appropriate.


Let's see how he tackles the current row as it also emerged yesterday that TfL's top managers paid themselves more than £17m in salaries and bonuses last year.

These figures, obtained under a freedom of information request, are particularly galling as the news follows the above-inflation fare increases we were subjected to last month.

One hundred and twenty-three TfL managers earned more than £100,000 in 2007-08. In contrast, the Treasury, responsible for the entire British economy, had just 15 six-figure earners. The Guardian has more on this and it's interesting to note that "The list of top jobs provided includes many with apparently overlapping job titles and descriptions, but there appeared to be nobody whose main responsibility is reducing the impact of TfL services on the environment, according to the Standard, nor any post with a job description which includes emergency or contingency planning, which includes dealing with extreme weather conditions."