Roaming Reporter: Inside the Tube strikes
Sam Lailey, Senior Staff Writer, MA Anthropology of Global Futures and Sustainability
On July 29th 2025, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) asked its members to vote on strike action. This followed an unresolved dispute with Transport for London (TfL) about pay, working hours, fatigue management, and extreme shift patterns. Out of the 10,424 RMT members entitled to vote, 6,004 individuals voted to strike, 209 voted not to strike, and 4,196 didn’t vote at all. With a majority of members in favour of strike action, the union mobilised. Consecutive days of striking between September 5th and 11th brought the vast majority of London Underground services to a virtual standstill, causing widespread disruption to commuters across the city and beyond.
At this point, you’re probably thinking that you’ve heard this all before. Indeed, your scepticism would be justified. The media spotlight has invariably focused on the inconvenience the strike has caused for ‘ordinary Londoners’, its economic repercussions, and on confronting RMT representatives about the chaos that has ensued. Eddie Dempsey, RMT’s general secretary, has taken to the nation’s airwaves to defend his union’s position. Meanwhile, TfL says it has made an offer of a 3.4% pay increase for all London Underground staff, but has dubbed the unions’ demands for steps towards a 32-hour week as ‘impractical’ and ‘unaffordable’. Amid this commotion, it has been easy to lose sight of the real people at stake: the voices that have been converted into mere statistics. In this article, I am determined to change that.
Over the past few weeks, I have set out to listen to the opinions of every Underground worker that would speak to me. What follows is an assemblage of these conversations, which took place at various points along London’s winding subterranean tunnels, at different times and in different stations.
Let me begin by saying that not everyone I spoke to chose to strike. A fair few weren’t even unionised. Some of the younger station staff didn’t seem bothered by their shift patterns, and weren’t particularly bothered about getting more involved in the unions. One young man I spoke to encapsulated this sentiment, telling me that he had thought about joining a union, but that so far, he figured it wasn’t in his best interests. Essentially, he was happy with his job.
Overwhelmingly though, Underground workers did recognise the importance of unions. I remember speaking to one station worker at Piccadilly Circus. A recent university graduate, he had only joined TfL within the last couple of years and was not unionised. But he spoke to me at length about the importance of unions. So why then, had he not joined RMT? His answer was simple. He couldn’t afford membership. For RMT, monthly membership is either paid at the full rate of £24.74 or the lower rate of £10.66, depending on whether your annual salary crosses the £24,964 threshold. Yet despite not being able to afford membership, he still chose to strike out of solidarity with his co-workers. This says something of the close-knit bonds station workers form with their colleagues.
These bonds are very localised. I discovered that station staff generally only work at a handful of locations, and so, the social circles they develop are relatively limited. There are further barriers between different kinds of workers. Train drivers, for example, rarely interact with station staff. However, this didn’t seem to impede a broader sense of solidarity. At Victoria station, one young man was acutely aware of how different individuals had different priorities. While he explained that the strike for him had mainly been about pay, he acknowledged that shift patterns have a much bigger impact on older staff members and drivers. He referenced a 2024 study conducted by researchers from the University of Greenwich, which revealed the detrimental health impact of night shifts on RMT workers. He also gestured to the dusty, polluted environment around him. Again, he emphasised that this was nothing compared to the pollution drivers were forced to inhale as they worked long shifts across the Underground’s tunnels.
Another young station worker at Caledonian Road echoed these words, this time in reference to working night shifts. She told me that she could tell which staff members had been working for London Underground the longest just by looking at their faces, and explained how constant fatigue can damage the body. In both of these instances, young workers had observed first-hand the physical toll erratic shift patterns had inflicted on their older colleagues. In this sense, as well as striking out of solidarity with their co-workers, they were striking now in order to protect their future selves.
By sheer luck, I managed to intercept a train driver as he was finishing his shift. Hair tied back in a bun and sporting a flashy pair of sunglasses, he wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Top Gun movie. And he didn’t hold back. Because he belonged to a different union, he didn’t comment specifically on RMT’s recent strike. But he did very passionately explain why he supported the principle of strike action. He asserted that it was unfair for the public to criticise the rail unions for doing their jobs well. He also argued that the plight of workers in other industries couldn’t be used as an excuse to erode the working conditions of rail workers too. This made for a convincing case.
The media’s coverage of the strikes was something that caused frustration with others. So much so that one particularly incensed worker at Piccadilly Circus rebuffed my approach by stating, ‘everything has already been said.’ When I gently probed him on why he didn’t want to speak, he made a reference to how several right-wing media outlets had reported that Tube drivers were demanding Legoland tickets as part of negotiations. Clearly, he felt the media narrative was being manipulated. Others, such as one middle-aged lady at Holloway Road, were rather more light-hearted about the whole affair. With two union badges proudly pinned to her jumper, when I asked her about the media’s reaction to the strikes, she just laughed. She insisted that for her, the strike was about fatigue, stating that she’d ‘take less pay for better hours’, but that TfL wouldn’t listen.
One of the last conversations I had was perhaps most revealing. I spoke to a young man who was new to the London Underground, having previously worked on the Elizabeth Line (which is separately operated by a contracted firm). He had left seeking better working conditions and better pay. Evidently, work in other sectors of the rail industry can be worse than it is in the London Underground. The worker was clear to attribute this difference to the strength of RMT. In his experience, a stronger union means better working conditions.
I will end by leaving you with the words one worker playfully uttered to me at Caledonian Road. ‘I think everyone should strike.’ Before you start to scoff, as I was very nearly tempted to, I challenge you to take a moment to reflect on the deeper meaning hidden within this hyperbole. I hope that this, and the collective story told by the people who have appeared within this article, will alter your perspective, as it did mine. Or at the very least, I hope it has made you think about the real voices drowned out by the noise.
