A new rail strike has been announced across 14 operators later this month. The new mass walkout was announced for Wednesday 27 July.
The RMT union has called for the stoppage over pay, conditions and job cuts and was announced as chiefs rejected a "paltry" 4% pay rise offer. It follows three days of strikes last month and will apply to some train operating companies plus Network Rail, crippling services the length of the country.
The firms hit by the RMT walkout will be Chiltern Railways, Cross Country Trains, Thameslink, Greater Anglia, LNER, East Midlands Railway, c2c, Great Western Railway, Northern Trains, South Eastern, South Western Railway, Transpennine Express, Avanti West Coast, and West Midlands Trains, reports MirrorOnline.
The strike kicks off at 2am on July 27 in Network Rail, and 12.01am on July 27 in the 14 train operating companies. Each action will last 24 hours.
More strike dates could reportedly be announced tomorrow by Aslef after train drivers in that union backed industrial action too. Aslef’s executive will meet on Thursday after drivers at eight firms - Chiltern, LNER, Northern, TransPennine Express, Arriva Rail London, Great Western, Southeastern and West Midlands Trains - approved a walkout.
RMT will be consulting with other unions that have backed strike action in the coming days Since last month, Govia Thameslink Railway has been added to the July 27 strike action.
Last time, RMT members at that firm had only voted for action short of a strike but they were re-balloted. The announcement came after RMT talks over pay, conditions and maintenance job cuts remained unresolved.
RMT chiefs rejected a new offer from Network Rail which they described as "paltry". It was for a 4% pay rise backdated to January, another 2% next year and a further 2% conditional on achieving "modernisation milestones".
The RMT said it has yet to receive a pay offer or guarantees over job losses from the train operating companies. Meanwhile, Tory MPs have approved a law that will allow striking workers to be replaced by agency staff.
Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said rail firms had been “disingenuous and dishonourable” while senior RMT officer Eddie Dempsey accused Transport Secretary Grant Shapps of “incendiary comments”. Speaking at the Commons Transport Committee, Mr Whelan demanded a pay settlement that reflects RPI inflation - currently 11.7%.
Mr Whelan told MPs: “We seem to be slightly demonised in the press because all I read about is train drivers wages in comparison with other workers. We don't believe it's a race to the bottom. The idea that we should give up what we've earned, or it should be devalued, because of the pandemic, as an excuse we find incredibly wrong.”
Mr Dempsey said a pledge there would be no compulsory redundancies was "progress" but not enough.
He said Network Rail faced “drastic, drastic cuts” and blasted the Tories' crackdown on unions saying: “The answer the government has got to the cost of living crisis is to criminalise dissent against poverty.”
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said after announcing the strike date: “The offer from Network Rail represents a real terms pay cut for our members and the paltry sum is conditional on RMT members agreeing to drastic changes in their working lives.”
He added: "The public who will be inconvenienced by our strike action need to understand that it is the government's shackling of Network Rail and the train operating companies that means the rail network will be shut down for 24 hours. We remain open for further talks."
Huw Merriman, Tory chairman of the Commons Transport Committee, criticised union leaders for seeking an above-inflation pay rise.
The MP said: "There has been £16bn worth of taxpayer money put into support the railway over a tough couple of years and the passenger numbers just aren't coming back.”
