Train strike: Mick Lynch blames Grant Shapps for deadlock on pay
Rail passengers face nightmare journeys today as new nationwide train strikes begin, with only one-fifth of services expected to run.
Around 45,000 workers employed by Network Rail and 14 train operators ‒ members of the RMT Union ‒ are walking out for 24 hours due to a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
Education secretary James Cleverly slammed the transport workers on strike, telling Sky News they were “holding the country hostage” and “disadvantaging people trying to get to work”.
Meanwhile, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch suggested that unions could start calling for “generalised and synchronised” strikes, due to widespread anger over low pay in the face of a cost of living crisis.
“There is a wave of reaction amongst working people to the way they’re being treated. People are getting poorer every day of the week,” he told Sky News.
“People can’t pay their bills. They’re getting treated despicably at the workplace. I think there will be generalised and synchronised action.”
Opinion: ‘So many at work feel stuck – I have sympathy for striking rail staff’
“Already, there are howls about how the unions are taking over and how RMT workers are selfish, and so on and so forth. But I cannot help but sympathise,” writes Harry Readhead for The Independent’s Voices section.
”Many of those striking worked all the way through the pandemic, putting themselves at risk. And some of them, as the RMT’s assistant general secretary, Eddie Dempsey, has said, are in the third year of a pay freeze.
“’Most of our membership are on around £24,000,’ he said. ‘We don’t think it’s unreasonable to say [when inflation] is at 11.1 per cent, we want a pay rise.’
“I don’t think that is unreasonable either.”
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Opinion: I have sympathy for rail strikers – and you should too
Rail workers are simply using the collective power they have, to send a message. There might be a lesson in this
Lucy Thackray18 August 2022 12:15
‘Extreme volatility when the traveller yearns for tranquility’ – Simon Calder
In his most recent commentary on the worst summer for rail strikes since the 1980s, Simon Calder, travel correspondent of The Independent, writes: “Talking privately to some rail staff, it is clear that they feel undervalued. They worked through the Covid-19 pandemic and are…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…