Grayling calls for changes to fare hikes and pay rises
SECRETARY of State for Transport Chris Grayling is calling on rail unions and train operators to limit their demands for future pay rises.
In a letter to the general secretaries of ASLEF, the RMT, TSSA and Unite, he also said he wanted the rail industry to use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to set the rate of fare increases, rather than the higher Retail Price Index (RPI).
In his letter to the unions, Grayling said that lower fare increases in the future could be limited by ensuring industry costs rise no faster than ticket prices. “One of the industry’s largest costs is pay. I support paying rail staff decent wages for the hard work they do, but I also now believe it is important that pay agreements also use CPI and not RPI in future when it comes to basing pay deals on inflation,” he wrote.
However, he also held out the possibility of above-inflation pay rises, saying: “I am not opposed to above inflation pay increases being individually negotiated between trade unions and employers in the industry where there are productivity or similar improvements that create the financial headroom for such deals. But it is difficult to justify using a different measure of inflation in the rail industry to the one that is widely used across services like the NHS. I think it is time to move the industry onto the same basis as elsewhere.”
Grayling also wrote to Rail Delivery Group (RDG) Chief Executive Officer Paul Plummer calling for the industry’s support