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Liverpool Echo
Liverpool Echo
National
Tom Duffy

Hundreds of people show support for striking rail workers

Hundreds of people marched through Liverpool city centre to show their support for striking rail workers.

Today's march was organised by the Rail and Maritime Transport workers union (RMT) who are locked in a long running pay dispute with the government. Saturday saw thousands of rail workers walk over pay and conditions.

Hundreds of people marched through the city to show their support for the RMT, which formed part of the Enough is Enough rally. Large posters were held up celebrating former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and calling for 'Tories Out' as they marched down Ranelagh Street.

READ MORE: 'Sadness' on the picket lines as rail workers stage latest walk out over pay

Mick Lynch, RMT general secretary, said public support for the strikes is "entrenching" and the public are "right behind us".

Asked on BBC Breakfast if public support may wane as disruption from the dispute continues, he said: "I don't think we are at a tipping point. I think we're seeing public support for this dispute entrenching.

"There are campaigns and rallies being launched right across the country in support of these type of activities. We've seen Unite bus workers coming into this dispute, we've seen many groups of workers winning significant pay deals.

"I think the British public are fed up of being ripped off by this Government and by corporate Britain, which have seen companies like BP and British Gas making massive profits while people are struggling to make a living.

"The companies are being supported in this by the Government and we're determined to get a square deal for our people and that's exactly what we'll achieved and the public seems to be right behind us in that campaign."

RMT ''Enough is Enough'' march and rally in Liverpool.(Pic Andrew Teebay). (Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)

On further strikes, he said: "I'll be talking to senior executives in the industry all through next week trying to create solutions to these problems and then we'll decide whether we need to take more industrial action but I've got to say that it's very likely given the gap between us at this time."

The union is seeking guarantees of no compulsory redundancies, a pay rise in line with the cost of living, and promises of no unilateral alterations to job terms and conditions.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "It's clear, from their co-ordinated approach, that the unions are hell-bent on causing as much misery as possible to the very same taxpayers who stumped up £600 per household to ensure not a single rail worker lost their job during the pandemic.

"Sadly, union chiefs have short memories and will be repaying this act of good faith by ruining millions of hard-working people's summer plans."

The rail unions reacted furiously to a warning by the Transport Secretary that changes employers are seeking, which are at the heart of the current train strikes, could be imposed.

Mr Shapps said he would have to enact legislation referred to as a "section 188" to force through some of the measures.

He told Sky News on Friday: "What I do know and I can say for sure is if we can't get this settled in the way that we are proposing, which is, 'Please put the deal to your membership', then we will have to move to what is called a section 188; it is a process of actually requiring these changes to go into place so it becomes mandated. That is the direction that this is moving in now."

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