Metronet crisis: workers poised to walk out over late pay

Metronet workers are threatening to bring chaos to the Tube unless they are paid in full this week.

The threat came as Metronet shareholders met on Monday to consider whether the consortium, which oversees the upgrade of two-thirds
of the Tube, should go into administration.

The drastic move follows independent PPP Arbiter Chris Bolt’s ruling that Metronet should receive only £121m of the £551m it was seeking from London Underground (LU) to cover preliminary cost overruns on one of its two LU PPP contracts.

The ruling does not augur well for Metronet’s hopes of claiming a further £1.5bn in cost overruns from LU.

Meanwhile, LU insisted it would be "business as usual" on Metronet’s lines, which include the Victoria, Central and Circle.

However, Metronet workers told CJ as it went to press that they are planning a walk out today (Wednesday) if they are not paid in full. The warning came after Metronet confirmed that it will pay its workforce this week.

One Metronet engineer told CJ that disruption is inevitable: "Even if the guys get paid this week, this is going to hit the operational side.

"You can slow the upgrades without much initial impact, but when the operational staff start feeling insecure, you will see a lot of them walking off the signals, track and maintenance work. The same goes for the subbies."

Metronet’s station upgrade work contractors also expressed their concern. One said: "We are watching the situation closely.

"Fortunately we are at the design stage so our exposure is relatively limited at this stage and we are assuming London Underground won’t want the upgrade programme to slip."