Unions postpone action during period of national mourning

All the unions involved in the rail dispute, along with unions in other sectors such as Royal Mail, moved quickly to postpone strikes following the death of Her Majesty the Queen on September 8.

National rail strikes by ASLEF members on September 15 and by RMT members on September 15 and 19 were immediately called off.

It is not expected that new dates will be announced until after September 19, when the period of mourning ends. Two weeks’ notice must be given to employers, meaning that the earliest new strikes could take place would be October 4.

Despite this brief lull, the overall situation had already worsened over the previous fortnight.

East Midlands Railway is now in dispute with all four rail unions (the only operator in this position) after Unite balloted 140 staff based at Derby, Leicester and Nottingham. The members are employed as cleaners, technicians, shunters, engineers, inspectors, lathe operators, team leaders and supervisors. The ballot closed on September 16.

Unite says that Abellio, which runs EMR, has not made a pay offer to its workers this year as it claims that the Department for Transport has not authorised it to do so.

Meanwhile, the TSSA union, which is now in dispute with 14 operators, is balloting its members at Govia Thameslink Railway for industrial action. The ballot closes on October 6.

TSSA members at GTR are in roles including platform and ticket office staff, train crew, engineers, control, administrative staff and management.

Just hours before the Queen’s death was announced, ASLEF postponed three days of strikes by tram drivers on London Tramlink on September 12-14, after First Tram Operations (which operates the Croydon system on behalf of Transport for London) made an improved pay offer, which is to be discussed at ACAS.

ASLEF organiser Finn Brennan said: “Although the improved offer does not meet our members’ aspirations, ASLEF will always look for a solution that avoids disruption to passengers and our members losing money unnecessarily while trying to achieve our objectives.”

So far during the dispute, tram drivers have gone on strike for four days.