MORE THAN 2,000 Metronet Tube maintenance staff will begin a seven-day overtime ban at 18:00 on Easter Monday (April 9) in a dispute over the forced transfer of staff to other companies, London Underground's bigest union announced today.

RMT said the action would have an immediate and cumulative impact on services across two-thirds of the Tube network, and warned that if the company failed to resolve the dispute by April 16 strike days would be called as well.

RMT members at Metronet voted overwhelmingly both for strike action and for short of strikes (figures below) after the company refused to withdraw plans to transfer staff to its parent companies, despite agreeing a year ago that it would not happen.

"Our members have demonstrated their anger at Metronet reneging on an agreement they made only a year or so ago," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

"This dispute is about honouring agreements and defending our members' pay, conditions and organisation, but it is also about resisting dangerous fragmentation that our members already have too much bitter experience of.

"After consulting reps across the company the RMT executive has today agreed that a seven-day ban on all overtime working will begin at 18:00 on Easter Monday, April 9.

"That will have an immediate effect on traffic on two-thirds of the network, and will eventually completely paralyse the system.

"The door is open for talks to sort this dispute out based on the agreement we already have, but the executive has also made clear that strikes will be called if there is no sign of a resolution in a week's time," Bob Crow said.

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Note to editors: RMT members at Metronet voted by 750 (92.6 per cent) to 60 (7.4 per cent) for strike action, and by 775 (96.4 per cent) to 29 (3.6 per cent) for action short of strike.

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U.K. Rail Union Threatens Strike at Tube Contractor

Bloomberg: March 28
By Brian Lysaght

-- The Rail, Maritime & Transport union said workers voted in favor of a strike at Metronet Rail Group, the largest contractor on the London Underground, in a protest over jobs that may disrupt service on the railway.

Union members voted by a margin of 750-60 in favor of a proposal to strike, the RMT said in an e-mailed statement today. The union represents 2,000 Metronet workers who maintain nine of the 12 lines on the London railway known as the Tube.

"Our members are angry that plans to force the transfer of staff into Metronet's parent companies are back on the table again, despite having won an agreement last year that it would not happen,'' Bob Crow, secretary general of the RMT, said in a statement.

The Tube carries 3 million travelers each weekday, and a lengthy strike at Metronet would disrupt the railway. Negotiations are continuing to resolve the dispute. Metronet is one of two contractors awarded 30-year agreements to maintain and upgrade the Tube. It works on the Bakerloo, Central, Victoria, Waterloo & City, Circle, District, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City and East London lines.

Metronet, a joint venture, said on March 9 it wants to transfer 250 train-maintenance employees to Bombardier, one of its five owners. The union and Metronet have been negotiating over the transfers since 2005, and talks are continuing, the company said.

Metronet is jointly owned by WS Atkins Plc, Balfour Beatty Plc, Bombardier Inc., EDF Energy SA and Thames Water.

Tube Lines Ltd., which maintains the Northern, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines, isn't involved in the dispute.

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Bombardier Fourth-Quarter Profit Rises on Rail Unit

Bloomberg: March 28
By Frederic Tomesco

-- Bombardier Inc., the world's third- largest maker of commercial aircraft, said fourth-quarter profit rose 30 percent on a fivefold earnings increase in the company's rail division.

Net income exceeded analysts' estimates, climbing to $112 million, or 6 cents a share, from $86 million, or 5 cents, a year earlier. Revenue grew 8.7 percent to $4.39 billion in the period ended Jan. 31, Montreal-based Bombardier said today in a statement.

Pretax earnings in the rail division, the world's biggest trainmaker, surged after the company closed plants and cut 7,500 jobs in Europe over the past two years. Chief Executive Officer Laurent Beaudoin said the unit had its best sales year ever with $11.8 billion in new orders, including $5 billion in the fourth quarter.

"The rail business has shown really good improvements over the last couple of years,'' said Richard Stoneman, a Toronto- based analyst with Dundee Securities Corp. He has a "buy'' recommendation on the shares. "It's enjoying significant increases in backlog. The margins finally started to shift higher, reflecting the cleanup they did by closing plants.''

Profit beat the average estimate of 5 cents a share from a Bloomberg survey of 10 analysts.

Bombardier's widely traded Class B shares rose 12 Canadian cents, or 2.6 percent, to C$4.73 at 9:44 a.m. in Toronto Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has climbed 20 percent this year. It reached a high of C$26.30 in August 2000.

Rail Division Margins

Earnings before financing income and expenses and income taxes at the rail unit jumped to $86 million in the quarter from $16 million a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, profit in the rail division was $53 million in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding the items, income in the rail division amounted to 4.7 percent of sales, up from 3.2 percent a year earlier. Bombardier today reiterated its goal of boosting the unit's margin to 6 percent within three years.

On that same basis, profit in the aerospace unit climbed to 6.2 percent of revenue from 4.5 percent as Bombardier delivered 69 business aircraft, up from 65 a year earlier. Bombardier wants the profit margin at the division, which makes Learjet and Challenger business aircraft, to expand to 8 percent within three years.

In the latest period, Bombardier also delivered 31 regional aircraft such as CRJ900 jets and Q400 turboprops. That's down from 35 a year earlier.

Business Jets

"Regional jets get all the attention, but they really are a minor player for Bombardier,'' Dundee's Stoneman said. "Those aircraft are not all that profitable. Business aircraft are where the profits are for Bombardier.''

Stoneman estimates business jets will account for 70 percent of Bombardier's aerospace revenue this year, an increase from 65 percent last year.

Bombardier forecast today plane deliveries will rise this year from last year's 326, the first gain in four years. It did not provide a specific figure.

Bombardier has shipped fewer regional aircraft as it lost sales to Brazilian rival Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, or Embraer, whose biggest plane seats 118 people. Bombardier's largest plane in service has 90 seats.

Two of Bombardier's biggest clients, Northwest Airlines Corp. and Delta Air Lines Inc., entered bankruptcy protection in 2005.

C Series Plans

The slackening in regional-jet shipments prompted the company to announce plans in October to cut 1,330 jobs and reduce production. The cuts, equal to about 5 percent of the workforce, cost the company about $31 million in its third quarter.

Bombardier hasn't yet decided whether to build the proposed $2 billion C Series aircraft, which would be the company's largest plane ever. Bombardier Aerospace President Pierre Beaudoin said in January the company would update investors on the project as it released fourth-quarter results.

"Aerospace continues to refine the C Series aircraft business plan, and discussions with a limited number of international partners are progressing,'' Bombardier said in its annual report, which was posted on the company's Web site. ``We will continue to evaluate the viability of the C Series.''

As of Jan. 31, Bombardier had $13.2 billion worth of airplane orders in its backlog, 23 percent more than a year earlier. The company's rail backlog was $27.5 billion, a 32 percent increase.