London Underground drivers are to stage a series of 24-hour strikes in the next few months in a dispute over working arrangements, the RMT union announced.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) said walkouts will start on November 26 and continue into the new year.

New working arrangements are being imposed including a four-day week, which the union says would mean drivers face spending more time driving trains, longer duties, earlier starts and later finishes.

RMT has said a change to the shift patterns could cause short-notice changes to shifts and changes to existing transfers and annual leave arrangements.

The union has also raised serious concerns that the proposals would pave the way for hundreds of job cuts, with initial rosters published for the Bakerloo line indicating significant reductions in staffing.

The 24-hour strikes will begin at noon on the following dates: •Thursday 26 November 2026 •Thursday 17 December 2026 •Saturday 19 December 2026 •Monday 4 January 2027 •Wednesday 6 January 2027 •Wednesday 17 February 2027 •Tuesday 23 February 2027 •Thursday 25 February 2027

“London Underground is attempting to dress up a wholesale attack on drivers’ working conditions as a voluntary four-day week,” RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said.

“But there is nothing voluntary about a scheme that forces drivers to give up existing protections whether they work four days or five, and threatens those who refuse with displacement from their depots.

“Our members are being asked to spend more time driving trains, accept longer and more unpredictable shifts and surrender agreements that have been negotiated and defended over many years.”

He added: “RMT is not opposed to a genuine four-day working week that benefits our members, but we will not accept it being used as a vehicle for job cuts, intensified working and the erosion of terms and conditions.”

But Aslef Britain's trade union for train drivers said the switch to a four day week would give train drivers an extra 35 days off a year.

“We are surprised that the RMT has, once again, decided to take strike action to try to prevent Underground drivers moving to a four-day week on a voluntary basis,” Finn Brennan, Aslef’s full-time organiser on London Underground, said.

He added: “The voluntary four-day week gives Tube train drivers an extra 35 days off every year with rosters based on a 34-hour week in return for some changes to working conditions and moving to electronic, rather than paper-based, systems for booking on for duty.

“We are in discussions with Transport for London about how the final details of this will work in practice.

“Management have agreed that anyone who wants to keep working a five-day week will be able to do so without suffering any detriment, and we will be holding them to that.

“A strike designed to stop people having the choice of a shorter working week and more time off is a strange choice to make.”

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