Five days of rail mayhem in worst strike for 30 years
● Drivers on £75,000 join the walkout ● 80,000 trains face axe ● 16 million journeys will be hit ● Get set for...
PASSENGERS are braced for the worst week of rail chaos in more than 30 years as 80,000 trains are axed amid a series of walkouts.
Business chiefs last night warned that five consecutive days of strike mayhem will cause misery for millions returning to work after the Christmas break, and turn shopping areas into ‘ghost towns’.
One senior industry source said that hard-pressed commuters face the ‘most disruptive week on Britain’s railways in a generation’.
The RMT union, which represents workers including signallers and station staff, will strike on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Aslef, which represents drivers, will strike on Thursday – despite some of their workers receiving a 28.5 per cent pay rise in 2017.
An estimated 62,000 trains will be cancelled during the RMT strike days, while 18,000 trains will be axed when Aslef drivers walk out on Thursday, the source claimed. A staggering 16million passenger journeys will be hit over the week.
The huge disruption is expected to cost bars, pubs, restaurants and hotels around £200 million.
‘Hospitality is facing a New Year hangover as rail strikes delay the return to work and make our town centres ghost towns for yet another week,’ Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK-Hospitality said. ‘This piles misery on commuters, visitors and tourists as well as hardpressed hospitality workers and businesses. Enough is enough, this needs to end now.’
Tory MP Iain Stewart, chairman of the Commons Transport Select Committee, said: ‘It’s going to cause enormous disruption for lots of people. The impact on the economy is going to be significant.’ The involvement of train drivers from the Aslef strike will worsen the impact of this week’s industrial action. While around one-in-five trains run on half the network during RMT strikes, only one in ten operate when drivers walk out.
Aslef’s general secretary Mick Whelan has accused Ministers and train bosses of forcing train drivers to ‘take a real-terms pay cut’.
But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that about 1,000 drivers were handed a 28.5 per cent fiveyear pay hike in 2017. With overtime, the average salary of many jumped to more than £75,000.
Aslef last night said its drivers had not had a pay rise since April 2019 and noted that inflation is running above 10 per cent. Speaking to the MoS, Mick Whelan said: ‘We have no choice other than to take action to highlight the fact the Government is strangling the talks.’
Meanwhile, sources played down hopes that rail bosses will come to a deal with the RMT shortly. The hard-left union has rejected a proposed 9 per cent pay rise over two years from Network Rail (NR) and talks are understood to be stalled.
A Government source said: ‘Union leaders are talking tough but strike action is an act of self-harm against their own workers.’
NR’s chief executive Andrew Haines said: ‘I am so sorry that our passengers are having to again bear the brunt of the RMT’s pointless strike when a fair offer is on the table and when only a third of the workforce have rejected it.’
The RMT last night did not respond to a request to comment.