A staff member stands outside London Euston railway station during joint strike action by train drivers, teachers, university staff and civil servants, in London, UK, on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023. The day of coordinated industrial action is expected to be Britains most severe day of strikes for over a decade, piling pressure on Prime Minister Rishi Sunaks Conservative administration to resolve disputes with public sector workers by making more generous offers on pay. The RMT union turned down the latest offer from the Rail Delivery Group, which represents the train companies involved in the dispute. The Aslef group representing drivers announced its rejection of the proposed 4% raise earlier Thursday.
Four more days of labor action are planned for May and June — three staged by Aslef and one by the RMT, potentially complicating plans for Eurovision in Liverpool and the FA Cup in London.
“The RDG have reneged on their original proposals and torpedoed these negotiations,” RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said in a statement. “No doubt their decision is due to pressure exerted on them by the Tory government.”
Strikes against the railway system, which kicked off a wave of walkouts across healthcare, education and the civil service, are now entering their twelfth month. Workers are angry at pay raises that fall short of inflation.
Aslef General Secretary Mick Whelan appeared before a committee in Parliament on Wednesday alongside Lynch. They said the government has attempted to pressure train drivers into working to uphold minimum service requirements, despite their disputes over pay and work conditions.
The pay offer was “fair and reasonable,” Max Blain, a spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, told reporters.
“This is disappointing news for our customers and staff, said a spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group. “More strike action is totally unnecessary and will only heap more pressure on an industry already facing an acute financial crisis.”
Nursing Strikes
Separately, a UK court told nurses that their plan for more walkouts must end a day early. The Royal College of Nursing had called for strikes from April 30 through May 2, but a judge ruled the union’s six-month mandate for labor action will have expired before the last of those days.
Pat Cullen, the RCN’s general secretary, said the union planned to go ahead with the first two days of strikes after balloting its members, saying outside of the Royal Courts of Justice that the National Health Service had been “run into the ground” during the pandemic.
“The government could not stand by and let plainly unlawful strike action go ahead,” Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said in a statement. He asked the union to call off the strikes altogether.
The British Medical Association, which represents general practitioners, said doctors voted overwhelmingly to ballot members for potential strikes unless contract terms are changed, adding to ongoing labor disputes among NHS workers.
--With assistance from Eamon Akil Farhat.