RMT denies that support for rail strikes is ‘eroding’ as third of staff turn up for work

SUPPORT for the national train strikes is “eroding” with almost one-in-three rail maintenance staff turning up for work, Grant Shapps is due to claim today.

Senior government sources said new figures showed 29 per cent of maintenance workers ignored picket lines last Thursday on the second day of the national strike. Just 24 per cent went to work on the first day of the stoppage.

The figures are expected to be made public by Mr Shapps, the Transport Secretary, in parliament today.

A senior government source insisted last night: “Support for the strikes is eroding because rail workers are not falling for the union spin. With the railway on life support, they can see for themselves how damaging strikes are to their industry and jobs.”

It is unclear how many of the staff going to work were members of the RMT, the rail union that is on strike in protest at compulsory redundancies and a pay offer of two to three per cent. The Government privately accepts that support for the strike among operational rail staff, including signallers, has remained solid. Eighteen percent of signallers – fewer than one-in-five – turned up for work on the first two days of the strike. Without signallers, Network Rail, which operates the railways, has been unable to run anything other than a skeleton service with 20 per cent of trains running and only for 12 hours a day with services stopped by 6pm. On some routes no trains have run at all.

The RMT will decide soon when to hold its next series of walkouts with the union and Network rail remaining poles apart in negotiations.

An RMT spokesman said: “The claims made by the rail industry that support for our strike is waning are a fallacy. The people who turned up for work were managers and contractors who were not balloted, in a vain attempt to break the strike.”