Nearly 1,400 London Underground workers today voted for strike action in a move that threatens to disrupt services on the Tube for weeks.

Union leaders today revealed that 95 per cent of their members at Metronet, the consortium that collapsed into administration last month, have backed industrial action.

They warned that unless Metronet’s administrators meet their demands by 6pm Wednesday, they will set the date for a first walkout on Thursday.

They have to give management seven days' notice of a strike date.

The workers include maintenance and repair staff vital to the upkeep of nine London Underground lines, including the Circle, Central and District lines.

The RMT union, the biggest of three trade unions with members at Metronet, wants guarantees that workers jobs, pensions and working conditions will be unaffected by Metronet’s demise.

Metronet was four years into a controversial £17 billion public-private partnership when it was forced to call in the bankers after huge cost overruns.

Bob Crow, RMT general secretary, said: "Our members have said with a single, united voice that they are not prepared to be made to pay for the failure of the PPP with their jobs, conditions or pensions.

"The work our members do is crucial not only to the day-to-day operation of the Tube but to the urgent upgrades that are slipping further behind schedule, and any further fragmentation of the workforce is out of the question."

Gerry Doherty, general secretary of the TSSA (Transport and Salaried Staffs Association), added: "Metronet shareholders may be able to back away from this fiasco but it is our members who are being asked to pick up the bill with lost jobs, transfers and pension cutbacks."

Before the ballot result, a spokesman for Transport for London said that any strike action would be “completely unnecessary”.

He added: “It is particularly unreasonable at a time when administrators are working to ensure the stability of Metronet following the company’s collapse.

“There are agreed channels for discussion on these issues and the unions should use them rather than call for strike action.”

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