Biggest UK rail strikes in decades to go ahead after last-ditch talks fail
The biggest rail strikes in three decades will start on Tuesday after late talks failed to break the impasse, with the RMT union leadership warning that industrial action will “run as long as it needs to run”.
Most train services in Great Britain will be cancelled on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday in a dispute over pay and conditions. Only a skeleton service will run on main lines and around urban areas.
London Underground workers will also strike for 24 hours on Tuesday, bringing the capital’s transport system to a halt.
The RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch, insisted the rail dispute cannot be resolved without the government “removing the shackles” on Network Rail and train operating companies. All parts of the rail industry, as well as Transport for London, have been told to find savings with fare revenue falling away since Covid.
But the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, insisted that talks remained a matter for the employers. He said the strikes were being “orchestrated by some of the best-paid union barons, representing some of the better-paid workers in this country, which will cause misery and chaos to millions of commuters”.
The RMT said that a pay offer was made by train operating companies in last-ditch talks on Monday, believed to be around 2-3%, with strings attached and no guarantees against compulsory redundancies. The union rejected the offer and a similar proposal from Network Rail on Friday.
Lynch said the offers were unacceptable, adding: “What we’ve come to understand is that the dead hand of this Tory government is all over this dispute – and the fingerprints of Grant Shapps and the DNA of Rishi Sunak are all over the problems in the railway, and indeed in this society.”
He said the source of the dispute
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