Breaking finance and business news, tax information, jobs and more for finance directors and senior finance professionals.

More than 2,300 RMT members at troubled Tube maintenance firm Metronet are to mount two 72-hour strikes after failing to secure guarantees over jobs, conditions and pensions from the bankrupt Underground maintenance company’s administrator. The Tube maintenance staff will walk off the job at 18:00 on Monday September 3 until 17:59 on Thursday September 6. The second stoppage will be between 18:00 on Monday September 10 and 17:59 on Thursday September 13.

The RMT, TSSA and Unite unions are furious that administrators from Ernst & Young at the troubled London Underground maintenance firm Metronet have refused to rule out job losses and transfers.

Metronet's shareholders include  engineering firm WS Atkins, Bombardier, Thames Water, EDF and Balfour Beatty. The administrators have estimated Metronet's losses to be in excess of £300m. In June, Bombardier said it would record a write-off of its Metronet investment of approximately £82 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2008.

Metronet was responsible for the maintenance of nine out of twelve Tube lines, including the Bakerloo, Victoria and Central, under a private-public financing initiative, and had announced plans to invest £17bn over the next thirty years. However, it failed to secure additional funding after cost over-runs estimated at £2bn by 2010. It had asked London Underground for £551m to cover extra costs to upgrade parts of the Tube system but instead was awarded £121m by the PPP regulator.

Last month, Transport for London (TfL), the transport authority that controls London Underground, blamed mismanagement and a lack of financial control for the overspend. Metronet responded by saying that TfL and London Underground had changed the specifications since signing the contracts. 

"It was quite clear that the administrator had no intention of giving us the guarantees we are seeking, and it appears inevitable that we will be setting a series of strike dates tomorrow," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said on Wednesday. Today he added, "Our members voted by a huge margin to strike against the threat to their jobs, conditions and pensions following the collapse of Metronet, and they have made it clear that they wanted substantial and meaningful action."

TSSA general secretary Gerry Doherty said: "The expressed views of our members leave no doubt on the strength of feeling on the outstanding matters from a group of employees who are not characterised by their militancy. Metronet and the administrator need to recognise that strength of feeling if matters are to be resolved."

"Those responsible for the finances, be it government, TfL or indeed the Mayor, need to urgently consider the position, do what is necessary to address the immediate situation and ultimately put in place an organisation that will deliver an underground capable of addressing the needs of London's traveling public," Gerry Doherty said.

Unite assistant general secretary Jennie Bremner said:  "It was clear from the outset that the administrator was not going to consider our position whatsoever."

"The administrator seems to be intent on continuing Metronet's failed policies which led to the company being taking into administration in the first place. Our hand has been forced and we now have no other alternative but to set dates for industrial action," Jennie Bremner said.