Much of Great Britain’s train network has ground to a halt after workers went on strike, disrupting travel for millions amid a worsening row with rail companies over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.
With only about one in five trains running on around half the network, some lines closed and more strikes planned for Saturday and next month, the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, threatened to ban “strikes by different unions in the same workplace within a set period” and ensure critical industries such as rail maintained minimum service levels.
Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT), responded by attacking anti-union measures that have also been proposed by the Tory leadership contenders Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, as an attempt to “take away human rights and the democratic right of people to express themselves through their trade union”.
On Tuesday, Truss said: “It is completely wrong that the travelling public are being held ransom by militant unions … I will take a tough line on trade union action that is not helping people get on in life … I will legislate to make sure that those core services are provided to the public.”
NEW In a sign of widening industrial unrest to come, Lynch said he would campaign for the Trades Unions Congress to call a general strike if she became prime minister in September and pressed ahead.NEWENDS
Pickets were set up outside train stations across England, Wales and Scotland as members of the RMT at Network Rail and 14 train operators went on strike. Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) at Avanti West Coast also walked out on Wednesday. Both unions are planning coordinated strikes on 18 and 20 August, while the RMT announced a strike on London Underground on 19 August. NEWPassenger numbers were two-thirds down on a normal Wednesday but more people ventured onto the railways than on 23 June, the second day of the last round of strikes, Network Rail said.NEWENDS
The RMT has rejected a 8% pay offer spread over three years from Network Rail as “measly”, saying it is not close to current inflation. The offer was conditional on changes to working practices, rules on redundancies and work-life balance, the unions said. The RMT opposes proposals to close ticket offices as more journeys are booked online, as well as amalgamating pay grades and changing pensions arrangements.
Andrew Haines, the Network Rail chief executive, said: “Despite our best efforts to find a breakthrough, I’m afraid there will be more disruption for passengers this week as the RMT seems hell-bent on continuing their political campaigning, rather than compromising and agreeing a deal for their members.”
Shapps ruled out meeting unions to break the deadlock, even if the situation escalated, telling Sky News he was “not the right person to be in the room negotiating”. NEW A department for transport spokesperson said: “government is not the employer here.”
Sharon Graham, general secretary of the UK’s largest trade union Unite, said the government had “miscalculated” with its attacks on union rights.
“People can see behind the usual narrative of ‘union bad, boss good’,” she said. “This is not the 1970s. The cost-of-living crisis is the latest episode in a long-term war on the living standards of workers.” NEWENDS
The shadow transport minister Sam Tarry defied a call by the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, for his frontbench not to join pickets as he said lives could be lost if wages did not improve.
“It can’t be accepted any more that people just have to accept inflation is out of control,” Tarry said from the Euston picket line. “The government is doing nothing on the cost of living crisis, and I tell you what’s shameful – I believe strongly that if we had a Labour government right now, this dispute wouldn’t be happening because we would actually be around the table.”
Amid increased traffic congestion across major cities and frustration among much of the travelling public, Lynch was asked by reporters if there was any alternative to strikes. “I could do trial by combat … but I can’t think of [another] way at the moment because we’ve been negotiating for two years,” he said. “But it would be interesting if me and Grant Shapps went head-to-head, if that’s not too flippant.”
The Rail Delivery Group, which represents train operators, said: “Like any public service we have to change with the times, and it’s only by making necessary reforms that we can give our people a pay rise. Which is what we want to do.”
Truss and Sunak have both said they would ban strikes on essential public services such as the railways, and Truss has said she would legislate for minimum service levels on critical national infrastructure in the first 30 days of government, a move described by Lynch as “proposing to make effective trade unionism illegal in Britain”.
Shapps said the strikes were “cynically timed to disrupt the start of the Commonwealth Games and crucial Euro 2022 semi-finals [Germany v France at Milton Keynes on Wednesday night], in a deliberate bid to impact the travel of thousands trying to attend events the whole country is looking forward to”.
One woman from Havant, Jen, who was unable to get to her uncle’s funeral because of the strike, told PA Media: “I would also like a pay rise in line with inflation but in reality that won’t happen. I don’t choose to mess around with people’s lives because of it.”
Elizabeth Bolton, the mother of a 23-year-old autistic man who was due to travel from Staines to London for his first day in a new job, said he had been left “distressed and upset” by the strike. She said she understood the strikers’ frustration, but added: “It’s selfish not to think about other people … There has to be another way to have their say.”
NEW Meanwhile, four days of strikes starting Friday by court workers have been suspended after the Public and Commercial Services union reached a 8.3% pay settlement with contractor OCS which will now go to a members vote. NEWENDS
