The Daily Telegraph

Train drivers reject £75,000 pay deal

- By Victoria Ward

RAIL passengers face further misery this summer after train drivers on Southern Rail and Gatwick Express voted to strike over pay.

Members of Aslef, the drivers’ union, voted overwhelmi­ngly for action on three days in the first week of August, despite being offered an improved pay deal worth up to £75,000 a year, including overtime.

Thousands who use the beleaguere­d train network and airport service face travel chaos at a time when many families will be attempting to travel on holiday. Southern’s parent company, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which was fined £13.4 million yesterday for poor performanc­e, had offered staff a fouryear deal which would increase pay by 23.8 per cent.

A GTR spokesman branded the decision to strike “simply breathtaki­ng” and said the 30,000 commuters who used the service daily and can likely look forward to much smaller pay rises would be “shocked and frustrated”.

The offer would have taken a driver’s base salary from £49,001 to £60,683 for the existing 35-hour, four-day week. Most of Southern’s drivers also work a fifth day as overtime, which tops up their pay by 25 per cent, taking potential total pay over £75,000.

But 61.8 per cent of voting members supported strike action, with 78.4 per cent voting to take part in action short of a strike.

The unions have argued that driver only operation is unsafe, a claim denied by Southern and other industry chiefs.

Mick Whelan, Aslef general secretary, said: “Now is the time for Chris Grayling and the Department for Transport to step in and assist in finding a resolution to a problem they caused.”

The strike will take place on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday (August 1, 2 and 4). A spokesman for GTR said the proposed action across one week “is a deliberate move to cause maximum disruption for passengers.

“To do so in protest against an offer to increase pay by 24 per cent is simply breathtaki­ng,” he added.

“Commuters, the vast majority of whom are seeing pay rises many times less, will understand­ably be as shocked and frustrated as we are,” he said.

“We absolutely need to modernise in order to increase capacity on this, the most congested part of the UK’S network, where passenger numbers have doubled in places in as little as 12 years. That requires modernisat­ion of infrastruc­ture, trains and working practices. The trade unions must join us in that endeavour.”

In a separate dispute, Aslef members working for Southern and Gatwick Express introduced an overtime ban, which will continue until further notice.

Passengers endured severe disruption and rail cancellati­ons throughout 2016 and earlier this year, as rolling strikes brought the south-east of England to its knees, with a walkout in January lasting three days.

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