The RMT union has announced that its planned rail strikes in the coming weeks will go ahead, with additional industrial action to take place over Christmas.
Following a meeting with Network Rail, the union’s general secretary Mick Lynch told reporters on Monday that the RMT was giving its members a week to vote on the organisation’s most recent offer – but was advising them to reject it.
“At the moment we’ve not got the means to a solution,” Mr Lynch said.
Despite putting the offer to union members, Mr Lynch announced that all of its planned rail strikes in December and January will still go ahead – and revealed that Network Rail workers will now additionally be instructed not to book on at work from 6pm on 24 December until 6am on 27 December.
This new phase of strike action coincides with the wind-down of the National Rail’s passenger service and with the commencement of engineering works scheduled over the festive period, Mr Lynch said.
The new strike will replace an overtime ban that had previously been planned between 18 December and 2 January. Under the current plan, more than 40,000 rail staff are due to walk out across Network Rail and 14 train operating companies on 13, 14, 16 and 17 December and on 3, 4, 6 and 7 January.
Union members will have until midday on 12 December to vote in an electronic referendum on Network Rail’s “improved” offer – a faster process than the typically fortnight-long postal vote.
Network Rail, which runs tracks and many stations, made a new offer on Sunday to backdate a pay rise of 5 per cent to the start of 2022, and a 4 per cent raise next year. It offered to guarantee no compulsory redundancies until 31 January 2025, and improve the ticket discount scheme for staff and family members.
“I am sure the travelling public will be really disappointed and irritated and angry,” Mr Lynch said as he announced the new strikes on Monday evening, but warned that the current offer is “extremely detrimental” to his members.
The union has another meeting tomorrow with the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) – whose separate offer of an 8 per cent pay rise over two years with a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies until April 2024 was already rejected outright by the RMT on Sunday.
Inflation is at its highest rate since 1981 – with prices rising by 11.1 per cent in the year to October,…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…