A massive national rail strike could take place soon amid concerns about how workers are being paid. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers is preparing to ballot members over what could be the biggest rail strike in British history.
RMT senior assistant general secretary Eddie Dempsey said it is preparing to ballot members over pay freezes and safety standards. In an interview with GB News today (April 21), he said: “This dispute’s been a long time in the making. We've been through the pandemic period where our members made lots of changes to their working practices and worked right through a pandemic to keep the country moving and many of our members have had pay freezes.
“Now some of them are in the third year of a pay freeze. We've changed how we work, we've made lots of sacrifices to help the railways going and we've been working with the industry in the rail industry recovery group, putting forward ideas on how to help the industry recover.
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“But that's turned into a forum where we're told now the intention is to strip £2 billion out of the rail industry to make that money come out through stripping out jobs and attacking terms and conditions and keeping wages low.”
Mr Dempsey said the cuts, which have been proposed because of fewer passenger numbers due to people working at home, threaten to put safety at risk. He added: “We've put forward lots of ideas on how they can save money.
"We've told them many ways they could make efficiency savings."
Mr Dempsey also said that money could be saved by cutting pay for executives at Network Rail. “We've pointed out that director pay is out of control with Network Rail," he claims. “Seven of the highest-paid civil servants in the country are Network Rail employees. If you strip their money back, just to what the Prime Minister's being paid, you'd save nearly £6 million a year.
"They've got eight non-executive directors, they spent nearly three-quarters of a million pounds for those people to attend eight meetings over one year during a pandemic.”
Tim Shoveller, Network Rail’s regional director, said: “Our railway has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, and even as passenger numbers start to recover, we know travel habits and passenger demand have changed and the industry has to change too. We cannot keep relying on Government handouts, and so we must work together with train operators and our trades unions to save millions of pounds and deliver a more efficient railway.
“Our modernisation programme aims to build a sustainable future that delivers for passengers and creates better and safer jobs for our people. We would not consider any changes that would make the railway less safe. We are disappointed that the RMT has taken this decision and urge them again to work with us, not against us, as we build an affordable railway fit for the future.”
