Do you think, a reader asks, the train strike for later this month will actually go ahead? Yes, and to be clear that near-certainty applies to all three national rail strike days – 21, 23 and 25 June – called by the RMT union on Tuesday. It is also inevitable, in my view, that the “bonus strike” on the London Underground called to coincide with the first day on 21 June, will take place.
My belief that the strikes will happen is because of a gulf between the sides that looks almost unbridgeable. Ostensibly this is a dispute with the main railway union on one side and, on the other, Network Rail (the infrastructure provider) and 13 train operators – including Northern, South Western Railway, Southeastern, LNER, Avanti West Coast, West Midlands Trains and GWR.
