Most of London's sprawling subway network was shut down by a strike Tuesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers to walk, switch to trains or buses, or just stay home. Around 2,300 members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers launched a 72-hour strike at 6 p.m. (1700 GMT) Monday in a dispute related to the collapse of their employer, maintenance consortium Metronet. There was no service on nine of the network's 12 lines, subway operator Transport for London said. London Mayor Ken Livingstone said the union was disrupting the lives of Londoners for no reason. «This strike is one of the most purposeless ever called,» Livingstone said on Monday. «All of the issues raised have been settled.» Metronet's workers maintain tracks, trains and signals on some of the subway system's busiest routes, and have demanded assurances that their jobs would be protected under the arrangements being made to try to rescue the company, which has been unable to pay its debts. London Underground said that two-thirds of London's subway system, known as «The Tube,» would be inoperative. Metronet's management said it had given the union's members written guarantees that their jobs were safe. But the RMT said it still wanted guarantees from Metronet that there would be no job losses, forced transfers or pension cuts. It warned of another 72-hour strike next week. The Tube carries an average of more than 3 million passengers a day over 255 miles (410 kilometers) of track.
