UK rail strike: second day of action to go ahead after
talks fail again
RMT accuses government of ‘wrecking negotiations’ as
operators and passengers prepare to face further disruption on Thursday
Gwyn Topham
Transport correspondent
@GwynTopham
Wed 22 Jun
2022 22.50 BST
Talks to
avert a second national rail strike collapsed in rancour as the two sides
traded insults in a bitter war of words as millions of passengers faced another
day of disruption.
In
increasingly fraught negotiations, the head of the RMT hit out at the transport
secretary, Grant Shapps, for “wrecking negotiations” in the dispute over pay,
working conditions and proposed “modernisation” plans to cut costs after the
pandemic.
Shapps said
the RMT claim was “a total lie”, while Network Rail claimed the union had
walked away from talks.
The rail
industry asked passengers to travel only if necessary on Thursday, when fewer
than one in five trains in Great Britain are expected to run as 40,000 RMT
members working for Network Rail and 13 train operating companies go on strike.
Services will be sporadic and limited to mainlines and urban areas between the
hours of 7.30am and 6.30pm.
Drivers
from the Aslef union will also join strike action on Thursday on the Greater
Anglia network.
The RMT
general secretary, Mick Lynch, blamed the transport secretary for the failure
of talks: “Grant Shapps has wrecked these negotiations by not allowing Network
Rail to withdraw their letter threatening redundancy for 2,900 of our members.
“Until the
government unshackle Network Rail and the train operating companies, it is not
going to be possible for a negotiated settlement to be agreed.
“We will continue
with our industrial campaign until we get a negotiated settlement that delivers
job security and a pay rise for our members that deals with the escalating cost
of living crisis.”
Shapps
responded: “This is a total lie from the RMT and its general secretary. I have
had absolutely nothing to do with either the issuing of a letter from Network
Rail, the employer, to the RMT – or any request to withdraw it.”
In a letter
to the RMT leadership on Monday, Network Rail gave notice that it would start a
formal process enabling 1,800 redundancies from 1 July, incorporating
compulsory redundancies if necessary. It said it could not delay any longer
plans to reform its maintenance regimes.
Shapps
added: “The RMT continues to deflect from the fact that the only people
responsible for the massive public disruption this week is them. I want to urge
Mick Lynch and his members to stop wasting time making false claims in the
media and instead return to the negotiating table so an agreement can be reached.”
A Network
Rail spokesperson said: “We are disappointed that the RMT have again chosen to
walk away from negotiations without agreeing a deal. We remain available for
talks – day or night – and will do everything we can to avoid further
disruption for our passengers.”
A Rail
Delivery Group spokesperson, representing train operators, said: “We call on
the RMT leadership to continue to talk so that we can secure a thriving
long-term future for the railway and its workforce.”
The union
has rejected offers of pay increases worth up to 3% from Network Rail and train
operators, and has indicated it wants a cost-of-living settlement more closely
linked to the RPI measure of inflation, which hit 11.7% in May.
Rail staff
at Merseyrail in the TSSA union voted to accept a 7.1% pay increase on
Wednesday, and is believed the RMT is seeking a similar offer nationwide.
Although
the government has refused to get involved in negotiations, saying it was a
matter for employers, the industry is currently bankrolled by the Treasury.
Downing Street said on Wednesday it would be “reckless” to raise public sector
pay in line with inflation.
The prime
minister’s spokesperson said: “It’s important to stress that does not mean we
do not want to reward public sector workers with a pay rise, we do, it’s just
we must make sure that we don’t do anything that has a knock-on impact which
feeds into this global inflationary spiral that there is the potential to see.”
The first
day of strike action on Tuesday, which also coincided with a London Underground
strike by another 10,000 RMT employees, saw relatively few passengers attempt
to travel on the services that remained running, but crowded buses and jammed
roads around the capital. Elsewhere, congestion appeared only slightly worse,
with many people now able to work from home.
Services
were also disrupted on Wednesday morning, between the first two of the three
planned strike days this week, with a later start in many areas and about 60%
of the normal schedule planned to run across the day.
However,
Great Western Railway said it had been able to operate more “Glastonbury
specials” to accommodate people travelling to the festival than it did in 2019,
with nine departures from London Paddington to Castle Cary on Wednesday and
five more planned during tomorrow’s strike.
Meanwhile,
bus workers at Stagecoach in Merseyside have voted to go on strike from the end
of next week. The walkouts would join ongoing strikes in Yorkshire by drivers
and depot workers for Arriva, which have stopped many services across the
county for more than two weeks. More Arriva staff across north-west England are
being balloted for strike action over pay.
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