Why London's Tube Drivers Are Still Striking Over a Four-Day Work Week

London's Underground trains have been disrupted repeatedly over the past few months. The strikes are about a proposed change to how drivers work their shifts — specifically, whether to squeeze the same hours of work into four days instead of five.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union, which represents some of London Underground's drivers, started this campaign of rolling strikes in March 2026 and has continued them into June. Strikes happened on June 3 and 4, with more scheduled for later that month. The core disagreement: the RMT says this compressed schedule is unsafe and wasn't properly approved by drivers. Transport for London, which runs the Underground, wants to move forward anyway.

The Guardian reported that last-minute negotiations in early June, mediated through an official arbitration service called Acas, failed to break the deadlock. About half of RMT drivers took part in the June 3 strike.

The Union Is Divided on This Issue

Here's a complication: not all driver unions agree. A different union, called Aslef, represents slightly more drivers than the RMT does. Aslef has actually supported the four-day week idea and did not strike. This split matters because it's limited the impact of the strikes — London Underground has been able to keep some trains running using Aslef drivers and managers.

If both unions had struck together, the disruption would likely have been far more severe.

This Dispute Has Been Going On for Months

The RMT scheduled strikes in March, April, May, and now June. The timeline shows how stuck both sides have become. The union paused some strikes after what it thought were promising talks, but then added more strike dates when negotiations stalled again.

The core disagreement is not really about working fewer hours overall. It's about whether drivers should have those same hours packed into four longer days, rather than spread across five. The RMT calls this a "fake four-day week" — you're not working less, just working longer each day. The union worries that tired drivers could make mistakes, especially in a complex system like the London Underground.

The RMT has stated that most drivers rejected this plan when they were asked about it directly, and that Transport for London is ignoring their views.

This Pattern Has Happened Before

The RMT's concerns about work schedules aren't new. In 2015, when London Underground introduced late-night Tube service for the first time, drivers and the RMT disputed working conditions then too. That dispute lasted months and required both sides to compromise before it was resolved.

The broader context here is that after the pandemic, many employers started experimenting with flexible work arrangements. For office workers, that often meant working from home. For people in safety-critical jobs like running trains, it's more complicated. You can't run trains remotely, so compressed schedules create real scheduling challenges. How both sides handle this suggests something about how other transport networks and industries might deal with similar changes.

Why This Matters and What Comes Next

The fact that the two driver unions disagree on this is significant — it reflects that workers themselves have mixed feelings about compressed weeks. Some may prefer four longer days; others worry about fatigue. This isn't a simple case of workers versus management. It's genuinely complicated.

The failed Acas talks in early June suggest that both the RMT and Transport for London remain far apart on the core issues: whether this schedule is safe, and whether it was properly approved. With more strikes scheduled and no sign of movement from either side, this dispute could easily continue the pattern of the 2015 Night Tube dispute — lasting months, requiring considerable negotiation, and ultimately needing some form of compromise before resolution.

The stakes extend beyond just London. How transport operators handle these kinds of scheduling disputes — especially in safety-critical roles where you can't just add more workers to cover — may shape how similar conflicts play out across other UK transport networks and industries facing the same post-pandemic questions about how we work.