UK minister warns public workers to brace for real-term pay cuts amid rail strikes

theguardian.com:

People should prepare for rail strikes this week, a senior minister has said, as he warned that the majority of public sector workers should expect a real-terms pay cut this year.

The government would “continue to support” negotiations between rail companies and unions but did not have a direct role in trying to prevent the biggest rail strikes in three decades, which were due to start on Monday night, Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, said.

“I do think it’s important that we send a message this week that industrial action is likely to proceed, and therefore people make sensible preparations now, because there’s no point giving false hope, if you like, that these strikes can be avoided. At this stage it is likely that they will proceed,” he told BBC One’s Breakfast programme.

Ministers have faced calls to do more to try to prevent three planned 24-hour walkouts this week by RMT members, the first of which starts just after midnight on Tuesday morning. This will result in only one in five trains running on strike days, halting services altogether in much of northern and south-west England, Wales and Scotland.

Clarke, in an interview with Sky News, said: “The government doesn’t sit as part of those talks for a very good reason. We don’t intervene in the specific process between an employer and the unions representing employees, but we are there to provide the support and the enabling framework for those talks to succeed. Ultimately, we don’t control all the levers that need to be held here.”

The strike has been called over feared job losses amid restructuring, and concerns that inflation forecast to reach 11% this year would mean staff getting a real-terms pay cut. Other professions, including teachers, could