Out on strike, yet paid more than teachers and nurses

RAIL unions brought Britain to a standstill yesterday to demand more cash despite some of their members earning big salaries.

Train drivers have a median salary of £59,000 – which is around £5,000 more than the pay of an average solicitor or a major in the Army.

Rail workers in general earn £44,000 on average according to the Government, which is higher than teachers (£41,800), the Royal Navy (£36,666), and an Army sergeant (£35,853).

The RMT claims this figure is not representative of those striking as the majority of drivers who earn the most are not on the picket line, while lowpaid staff such as cleaners are.

It said the median salary of those protesting was £33,000 – but that is still over 5 per cent higher than the median annual pay of UK workers (£ 5,971) and nearly double a care worker’s average pay (£17,000).

Even taking the union barons’ figure as gospel would still mean that those on strike earn roughly the same as most nurses and a little more than a junior doctor who have gone through seven years of training.

It means low-skilled workers already earning more than frontline NHS staff are holding Britain to ransom to try and get a 7 per cent pay raise. This is despite the Government already providing £16billion so that not a single rail worker had to be furloughed through the pandemic.