The Rail Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said the agreement was worth up to £850 ($1,329/€1,063) for 10,000 staff who work on the Underground in recognition of the "massive additional pressures" they will face during the Games.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "After months of hard work by our negotiators we have been able to come to an agreement that both protects the contractual rights and existing agreements of our members and rewards them in recognition of what we all know will be the biggest transport challenge ever faced by this city.

"However, on a separate issue, RMT will continue to fight for safe staffing levels to deal with the stresses and strains on the system.

"We have seen from the repeated breakdowns over the past two weeks the impact of cuts to staffing and maintenance and it is our members who are out there fighting to hold the service together and they deserve both every penny they get and the right not to be bullied into accepting unfair and unsafe working practices."

Transport for London, the capital's transport authority, handles around 12 million journeys per day on the Underground, bus, Docklands Light Railway and London overground networks.

An extra three million daily journeys are expected during the Olympics, with the vast majority of those trips occurring on the tube network.

Transport for London (TfL) said RMT members have now joined those of Aslef and Unite who have signed up to the deal and TSSA, who have agreed in principle.

The deal for maintenance, stations and control room staff includes an attendance allowance of £20 ($31/€25) per shift, which could equate to a payment of £400 ($625/€500), plus a £100 ($156/€125) customer service bonus and a payment of £350 ($547/€438) for flexible working during the Games.

Howard Collins, the London Underground chief operating officer, said: "I am pleased that we have now got agreement from all four unions on our proposals for how we can fairly reward staff over the London 2012 Games.

"I know our staff are keen to play their part in the Games and, now that we have agreement across the board, we can all look forward to focusing on supporting a fantastic summer of sport and cultural events in London."

But the possibility of industrial action affecting London 2012 still exists as 21,000 bus workers at the Unite union are being balloted for strike action over bonuses for their "massive increase in workload" during the Olympics between July 27 and August 12.

Unite has said strikes could take place during the Games but so far neither the bus operators nor TfL are willing to fund extra payments. 

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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