Transport ministers ‘must follow example of health colleagues’ to reach RMT deal

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT, joined union members on the picket line outside Euston station (Jeff Moore/PA)

Transport ministers must follow the example of their health department colleagues by offering “new money” in union negotiations or passengers will face further rail misery, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch has said.

Mr Lynch was speaking as he joined workers on a rainy picket line at central London’s Euston station on Saturday, as a walkout by 20,000 members across the country crippled services.

Workers from across 14 train operators are on strike in a long-running dispute over jobs, pay and conditions.

Several health service unions, including the British Medical Association and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), have agreed to suspend industrial action after the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) made a new pay offer.

Mr Lynch said ministers in the health service negotiations had shown a small “change in attitude” and DfT ministers must follow suit to avoid strikes planned for the end of March.

He told the PA news agency: “We need a change in attitude. We’ve seen a bit of that in the health service and maybe in the teachers’ unions.

“The difference in that is there are no conditions, it’s new money – but our members are expected to swallow vast changes to their working conditions and they’re not prepared to do that to get a very modest, poor pay rise.

“In order to get something moving they’ll have to take away some of the conditions they’ve put on this proposal, and we want some fresh money in the pay proposal, so we’ll see what happens next week.”

Industrial strike — Mick Lynch (sixth left blue jacket), on the picket line outside Euston station on Saturday (Jeff Moore/PA)

He added: “They’ve got 18 points that they want us to concede on our members’ terms and conditions, their contract of employment, what they’re paid and how they’re rostered, how they do their work, what they get for sick pay, what they get for holiday pay, all sorts of things that are in a bundle as you’d expect, they want to dilute.”

A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “RMT members at Train Operating Companies are being denied a say on their own future, while being forced to lose more pay through avoidable strike action.

“We urge the RMT’s Executive to put the Rail Delivery Group’s very fair offer to a democratic vote of their members, like it has on two separate occasions for RMT members working for Network Rail.”

Passengers were warned to check before they travel, with trains due to start later and finish much earlier than usual – typically between 7.30am and 6.30pm.

It is expected that nationally between 40% and 50% of train services will run but there will be wide variations across the network, with no services at all in some areas.

Services may also be disrupted on Sunday because much of the rolling stock will not be in the right depots.

Football fans and families travelling to weekend leisure events will be among those affected.

RMT members went on strike on Thursday and more stoppages are planned on March 30 and April 1.

The breakthrough in health union talks with the Government came on Thursday after the DHSC tabled a one-off lump sum for 2022-23 that rises in value up the NHS pay bands as well as a permanent 5% rise on all pay points for 2023-24.