Zac Goldsmith has challenged Sadiq Khan over his close links with the Tube unions and asked to spell out what compromises he would agree to.
London Underground and the Tube unions have been in dispute for months over ticket office closures, jobs and rosters that have delayed the start of the all-night Tube service.
It prompted Tory candidate Mr Goldsmith to ask his rival at last night’s Evening Standard’s mayoral hustings: “If you’re going to sit down with the unions, what would you give them, what would you agree to, on what would you compromise?”
Electoral Commission figures show the Labour candidate has received thousands of pounds in funding from trade unions to help his bid to win power in City Hall in May.
Mr Goldsmith that said that according to Transport for London fares would go up by six per cent if all the union demands were agreed to.
But Mr Khan denied suggestions he was “in the pocket of the unions.”
The former Labour transport minister criticised Boris Johnson’s record of not having sat down with the unions during his eight years in office and claimed it had increased the number of strikes.
He said: “You should sit down and talk to those people who do really hard work, driving those buses, driving their Tubes. You need to have a strong relationship with them, so you can sit down and talk to them.”
He condemned as “a disgrace” RMT boss Steve Hedley’s calls for Tory MPs “to be sent out and shot” in a radio interview this week but stopped short of calling for his resignation.
Instead, he said the union’s assistant general secretary should “apologise unequivocally” for his remarks.
Liberal Democrat candidate Caroline Pidgeon said strikes should be “an absolute last resort” and it was “a poor reflection” of Mr Johnson’s industrial relations that Londoners were facing strike after strike. She called for independent binding arbitration to help avoid future action.
