Union barons vow to stage ‘indefinite’ rail strikes as summer of chaos continues over pay row
Rail union barons threatened ‘indefinite’ strikes yesterday as they crippled Britain’s network with a fifth national walkout in two months.
Boss of the militant RMT, Mick Lynch, vowed that his union ‘won’t be broken’ and will hold the country to ransom until its pay demands are met.
But ministers and rail chiefs hit back and both sides dug in, with Transport Secretary Grant Shapps branding the unions ‘selfish’.
Network Rail boss Andrew Haines accused them of trying to ‘bankrupt’ the industry.
Today’s walkout hit students celebrating their A-level results, domestic holidaymakers and those trying to reach airports to go abroad.
Most commuters appeared to opt to work from home.
Although talks will continue, there appeared to be little prospect of a deal, raising the prospect of months more of walkouts.
Unions could call new strike dates as early as next week.
Mr Shapps said: ‘I’ve heard stories of people who are losing income, on low-incomes in the first place, unable to get to their place of work like a hospital, and these are the people the RMT say they want to help, and instead they’re harming them, and it’s incredibly selfish.
Injury: A rather battered former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on rail union picket lines yesterday
‘Every household has paid £600 to support every rail worker [by bailing out the industry during the Covid-19 pandemic].
‘We’ve been generous with it, we’re building our network and building more stations, reversing the Beeching cuts [made in the 1960s], investing billions and billions into our railway with the Integrated Rail Plan, including HS2, and this is the way the unions thank us for it.’
But Mr Lynch insisted: ‘He’s not enabling a settlement to this dispute, we’re not a selfish organisation. We won’t be broken.’
He said the strikes could last ‘indefinitely’.
Manuel Cortes, boss of the TSSA union, whose members also went on strike yesterday, said: ‘We are resolute to continue to campaign until we get a fair settlement. We’re not going away.’
Nine Labour MPs, including a frontbencher Navendru Mishra, continued to defy Sir Keir Starmer as they joined former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on rail union picket lines yesterday.
Mr Corbyn was sporting a black eye and split lip following a running injury. Sir Keir has warned that his MPs should not be on picket lines if they want to see the party in government.
Yesterday was the beginning of four days of misery on the railways. Just one in five trains across Britain ran and only between 7.30am and 6.30pm.
Services will be reduced by the same amount tomorrow when the same 45,000 RMT and TSSA workers walkout again.
There will be a knock-on impact on today’s and Sunday’s timetables, with service levels at only around 70 per cent and 85 per cent respectively.
Today commuters in the capital face a strike by 10,000 Underground workers represented by the RMT in a separate dispute over job cuts and pensions.
Unions want pay rises in line with inflation, with the RMT rejecting an offer from Network Rail of an 8 per cent pay rise over this year and next. It has refused to put the deal to members.
A Department for Transport spokesman said: ‘It’s clear strikes are not the powerful tool they once were and union chiefs are no longer able to bring the country to a standstill as, unlike them, the world has changed.’
