RMT’s general secretary Mick Lynch has clashed with a Sky News reporter in a fiery exchange over rail strikes after he accused the presenter of being a “government mouthpiece”.
Up to three in five train services are cancelled today as rail workers walk out in an ongoing dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
Appearing on Sky News on Thursday morning to discuss the strikes, Mr Lynch came up against presenter Jayne Secker who suggested rail the workers were striking their “own way out of a job” – a view that he argued was a “government line”.
Ms Secker said: “Some would argue that you’re actually striking your own way out of a job because you’re going to contribute to the railways becoming less popular, less reliable. People are going to stop relying on the railways.”
Lynch rejected her claim, saying: “Well, I don’t think that’s true. That’s a government line that you’re punting out on their behalf.”
But Ms Secker was quick to push back: “I’m not going to have you stand there and accuse me of being a government mouthpiece. This has got nothing to do with the government”, she added, noting that she was relaying information from conversations she had personally had with people about the strikes.
“It’s exactly the phraseology that I hear across the table from government ministers, almost verbatim…maybe you’re just very in tune with what they say,” Mr Lynch went on.
“What we’re seeing now is a government that’s determined to drive down public transport usage, whether that’s on the buses or the railway. Fares are being hiked, services are becoming more and more unreliable, and the problem is that there is not a coherent railway system in our country.
“It is completely fractured and broken, and we need to revise that and get a decent system that’s in all our interests.”
RMT workers aren’t the only ones on strike: teachers in England and university staff are continuing their walkout from Wednesday.
In one of the single largest days of action in a decade, up to half a million teachers, lecturers, junior doctors, civil servants, London Underground drivers, BBC journalists and Amazon employees stopped working.
Between 40 and 50 per cent of train services are expected to run on Thursday, though this will vary between operators. In some areas, there will be no service at all, with the next strike dates confirmed for Saturday 18 March, Thursday 30 March and Saturday 1 April.
