Of all the low moments in the long-running rail dispute, few have possibly been as dispiriting as the past 24 hours. After Network Rail and the RMT union reached agreement on a two-year deal in March, longsuffering passengers and workers might have assumed the truce was also leading to a wider settlement between train firms and their staff.
The subsequent calm, with no further strikes on the horizon, abruptly ended on Thursday when first the train drivers union Aslef and then the RMT announced fresh action. Aslef’s move to three days of strikes and a week-long overtime ban is the union’s toughest single action yet, underlining the anger felt by drivers at a lowball offer with strings attached.
