DLR
The 48-hour DLR strike will begin on the morning of 1 February Reuters

A planned 48 hours of strike action on London's Docklands Light Railway (DLR) is set to go ahead after talks to end the walkout broke down.

Members of the RMT union, who are employed by contractor ISS on the KAD contract. will start the strike at 5:30am on Thursday 1 February and will continue until 5:29am on Saturday 3 February.

Read more

RMT cleaners, security staff and travel safe officers said they will launch the strike action following a "comprehensive breakdown" in industrial relations after talks failed this week due to the "intransigent attitude of the management".

The union has instructed members to not deviate from the current valid approved risk assessments between Monday 5 February and Saturday 10 February.

The union blamed a failure to hold "meaningful pay talks or provide a proper response" to the union's pay claim as well as other long-standing issues.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said: "We are supporting our members' further strike action in a bid to force management to honour agreements, pay staff their contractual hours and give their staff proper respect and dignity at work.

"RMT reps have continually chased management to settle the dispute but the company are blatantly ignoring the union's concerns. The fact that the company were prepared to kick back in our faces genuine attempts by the union to resolve the dispute in talks over the past week speaks volumes.

"We are expecting further and continuing solid support from our members in this dispute. The union remains available for meaningful talks."

ISS said that the company is "disappointed" by the planned industrial action.

A spokesperson added: "We continue to meet with the RMT in an attempt to resolve the dispute and welcome positive and transparent discussions to resolve the perceived issues.

"Our priority now is to minimise the disruption to the travelling public and we will achieve this through using additional resources from other qualified Transport teams."

Mark Davis, interim general manager of the DLR, also added: "This issue is between the RMT Union and ISS, the KeolisAmey Docklands contractor that provides cleaning and security staff on the DLR.

"We have been assured this will not have an impact on our customers or the DLR service.

"We urge all parties to sit down and talk through the issues to try and resolve them as soon as possible."