24-hour rail strike to go ahead

BRITISH Rail will be paralysed today as more than 80,000 employees stage a 24- hour strike over job security. Tubes and buses will run normally in London.

Talks yesterday between BR and Aslef, the train drivers' union, made significant progress but too late to stop the union's 16,000 members joining today's stoppage.

Aslef's executive will consider on Monday BR assurances on employment conditions in the run-up to privatisation and talks are due to resume that day. The executive of the largest union, RMT, will also consider fresh proposals, but a senior union official said that ministers were keen to prolong the dispute to try to make privatisation more attractive.