Britain braces for a week of rail chaos
Last-ditch talks fail to prevent three days of walkouts that will paralyse UK
BRITAIN will be paralysed by the worst rail strikes in three decades next week after crisis talks between rail bosses and union barons again failed to break the deadlock.
Industry sources said 11th-hour discussions with the RMT union last night failed to secure a deal to prevent a walkout of 40,000 staff that will shut down half of the rail network.
A senior government source said ministers would not back down in the clash with the unions. ‘Expect the Government to be very strong on this,’ they said.
The impasse means only one in five trains will run on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, while lines that do open will operate only between 7.30am and 6.30pm. Services on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday will also be badly impacted.
The industrial action will cost upwards of £100 million in lost ticket revenue alone, with the wider economic impacts expected
‘Ministers will not back down’
to cost hundreds of millions of pounds. Talks will continue over the weekend after ‘some movement’ yesterday, a rail source said. But any hope of a deal appears increasingly unlikely.
A Downing Street spokesman said it was in the hands of the unions to call off the strikes, adding: ‘We are not the employers in this case and we can’t intervene in the negotiations between rail companies and the unions. But what we want to see is unions get back round the table with their employer and call off the strikes.’
The Department for Transport said ‘the industry is offering daily talks to resolve the strikes’ and encouraged unions to ‘take them up on that offer and negotiate a fair deal for workers’.
RMT members at Network Rail and 13 train operators are walking out in a dispute over pay and job security.
Ministers and motoring groups last night called on local authorities to pause road charges during the strikes as more people are forced into their cars.
Business minister Paul Scully said London Mayor Sadiq Khan should ‘lift the Congestion Charge and stop non-essential roadworks on those strike days to make it easier for people to go about their business and get into work’.
AA president Edmund King said similar steps should be taken in other parts of the country.
‘If there are no trains coming into Glasgow and Edinburgh, say, and people have to go about their business, there could be a case for suspending parking charges for the duration of the strike,’ he said. ‘There is the danger of some areas becoming ghost towns.’
The AA has predicted rush-hour traffic will be ‘much heavier as millions more are forced on to the road to earn their daily wage’, with low-income earners who can’t work from home worst hit. The difficulty of unions, rail bosses and ministers to see eye to eye was compounded last night by the announcement of further strike ballots by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA).
The union said hundreds of workers at Southeastern and Great Western Railway will vote on strike action which could take place at the end of July.
The TSSA said it was demanding a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies, no unagreed changes to terms and conditions, and a pay increase which reflects the rising cost of living. General secretary Manuel Cortes said: ‘Our demands are simple, pay which reflects the times we live in, a deal which delivers job security, and no race to the bottom on terms and conditions.’
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps warned on Thursday that rail workers risk ‘striking themselves’ out of a job.