One year on from the start of the first national rail strikes since the 1980s, the dispute over pay, jobs and working conditions appears as intractable as ever. More walk-outs are expected to be announced in the next few days by the main rail union, the RMT.
Speaking exclusively to The Independent, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch warned: “Our executive will meet again this week and I’m fairly certain they will put more strike action down.”
Since 21 June 2022, members of the RMT union have walked out on 28 occasions.
While one dispute involving Network Rail has been settled, negotiations with train operators – including all the leading long-distance and commuter firms – appear to have stalled.
The train operators are represented by the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), with any settlement signed off by ministers – since the cost will ultimately be footed by taxpayers.
Mr Lynch said: “We’re available all of the time to talk about a settlement and negotiate a deal, but there isn’t one available.
“The government have locked the dispute down, and have gone to radio silence, I’m afraid.
“We’re not giving up. We’ve had a mass meeting of our reps last week and the message was very firm: that they wanted to continue.
“I don’t know what that [industrial action] will be at this stage, but it will be another campaign of action to try and keep the dispute alive so that we can get a settlement for our people.”
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “It is completely false to say the government is blocking a deal.
“The Transport Secretary [Mark Harper] and Rail Minister [Huw Merriman] have regularly met union leaders and facilitated a fair and reasonable offer, which includes a generous pay rise and no compulsory redundancies.
“The government wants to see an end to this dispute, but that requires union leaders to put offers to a vote of their members.”
Mr Lynch insisted that the recent ballot to continue industrial action was effectively a referendum on the employers’ “best and final offer’, and that a separate vote would be unnecessary.
At the heart of the issue are reforms to working practices – which the RMT leader characterises as “cuts”.
The general secretary said: “They want us to just give up on our terms and conditions – where we say we’ll go into negotiations or consultations on a second phase, where we haven’t even seen the detail, but we must declare the dispute over.
“No responsible union would do that.”
A spokesperson for the RDG said: “The deals offered have been fair and affordable, worth up to 13 per cent over two years for the lowest paid, along with job-security guarantees.
“It is to the detriment of its own membership, and the financial viability of an industry of vital economic importance, that the RMT leadership has blocked its members from having their say on their own offer and instead opted to prolong this dispute.
“The reality is that members of the RMT have already lost around £2,000 pounds due to industrial action, while taxpayers shoulder the burden of making up for a 30 per cent revenue shortfall post-Covid as confirmed in the latest Passenger Usage report.
“We urge the RMT to work constructively with industry to put in place common-sense and long-overdue reforms that would improve the service for our passengers, fund a pay rise and help secure the long-term future of the industry.“
On the employers’ side, a sense is building that talks have run into the sand, with the RMT’s executive committee unwilling to sign off a possible settlement – or put it to a vote of members.
The next step could be to impose changes such as booking office closures, or to devolve talks to individual train operators – which Mr Lynch characterised as “less easy to handle from both sides of the equation”.
Aslef, the train drivers’ union, will resume national industrial action in 2 July with a six-day overtime ban among members working for more than a dozen train operators.
