As Network Rail staff back pay deal, will unions now settle other train disputes?
COMMUTERS breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as members of the RMT union accepted the latest Network Rail pay offer.
The rail union announced that 76 per cent of members voted in favour of the 9 per cent offer, on a turnout of nearly 90 per cent, raising hopes other longrunning train disputes could soon end too.
The result piled pressure on the militant union’s leader Mick Lynch to allow workers at the 14 train operating companies to vote on a similar offer.
Their dispute remains unresolved, with the planned closure of ticket offices understood to be one of the main sticking points.
But there are growing hopes that the Network Rail breakthrough could help unlock a deal with the operators, such as Avanti West Coast, Greater Anglia and LNER.
From now on, disruption on RMT strike days will be much less severe as thousands of signallers employed by Network Rail will be working. Just one in five services overall could run when strikes included Network Rail but at least half can now do so and as much as 80 per cent on some routes.
In the Commons yesterday, Transport Secretary Mark Harper said the breakthrough showed ‘ how many [workers] wanted to call time in this long-running dispute’.
He added ‘fair and reasonable’ offers had been made to all staff and the RMT’s refusal to put the train operators’ offer to workers in a vote showed a ‘ lack of co-operation’.
Mr Harper called on the union to call off upcoming strikes at the operating companies and put their offer, also worth 9 per cent, to a vote to ‘give all your members a say’.
Earlier the minister said: ‘I am pleased Network Rail’s RMT members have voted to accept a fair and reasonable 5 per cent plus 4 per cent offer, over two years, that the Government worked hard to facilitate.
‘While this is good news, unfortunately RMT members who work for train operating companies are not
‘Wanted to call time on dispute’
being given the same chance to bring their dispute to an end.’
But Mr Lynch said the operators’ offer must improve first. ‘Our members’ recent highly effective strike action across the 14 train companies has shown their determination to secure a better deal,’ he added.
‘If the Government now allows the train companies to make the right offer, we can then put that to our members but until then the strike action scheduled for March 30 and April 1 will take place. The ball is in the Government’s court.’
Although the offer from operators is also worth 9 per cent, it includes conditions such as more Sunday working plus ticket office closures.
A dispute with train drivers is still unresolved but a source at their union Aslef said ‘the mood music is more positive’ in these talks now. The Network Rail deal includes no compulsory redundancies until 2025 and a 75 per cent discount on rail travel for workers. The RMT has staged 18 national walkouts since June 2022 and Aslef has held eight.