Rail strikes could last all winter unless the new Transport Secretary agrees to compromise, a union chief has warned.
Mick Lynch laid down the gauntlet to Mark Harper after the top Tory was given a Cabinet job in Rishi Sunak ’s reshuffle.
Asked if strike action could continue into Spring 2023, the RMT general secretary told the Mirror: “It could.
“I don’t want that, it’s not my plan. We don't have a plan for an end date or ‘it's got to continue’.
“We're not in this for the sake of it. We want the companies to make us proposals that will settle the dispute.”
It threatens new disruption in the run-up to Christmas as the rail strike dispute chugs into its seventh month without resolution.
Mr Lynch said “people are getting stronger behind us” and he will be in touch with the Royal College of Nursing over their proposed strike.
He added: “The Secretary of State has got to decide what his stance is.
“If he unlocks some funding and unlocks some new positions of principle, then there could be a settlement to this dispute very quickly.”
Fresh rail strikes will be held on November 5, 7 and 9, crippling services on those days.
Network Rail urged passengers to only travel if necessary, warning only one in five trains will run, and only between 7.30am and 6.30pm.
Mr Harper today said he was “very happy” to meet unions after his predecessor Grant Shapps refused to do so.
He told LBC: “The negotiations are obviously going to take place between the unions and the employers.
"But I think it's helpful for ministers to meet trade union leaders and to listen to their concerns.
"I'm very happy to do that and my department will be reaching out to those trade union leaders in due course."
Mr Lynch said members have been offered 8% over three years but “it’s a pay cut” because inflation is running higher. He added conditions and safety were more important than pay.
It came as he threatened a legal fight and to “get round” Tory plans to force “minimum service levels” on striking industries.
Protesting against the plans outside Parliament, he said they will mean “people can be conscripted, in effect, to go to work during a lawful dispute”. He added: “We will try to get round that.”
Mr Lynch said “Sunak and Truss represent the two extremes of right wing militancy”.
He added: “They need an enemy because they’ve set everybody else up to be their enemy and everybody hates them.
“There’s a broad cross section of society that are completely opposed to this government.”
On minimum service levels he went on: “We’ll pursue whatever legal angle we can take. We’ve got to get legal advice on that.
“The TUC stance is we’ll see you in court and that will happen - there’s no doubt there will be legal challenges.
“But I’m not convinced that’s the answer and that some Etonian or Harrovian judge sitting in a wig and gown is going to say ‘I’m on the side of the RMT’.”
Mr Lynch also blasted workshy Matt Hancock for bunking off to appear on I’m a Celebrity - and said Boris Johnson should lose the whip too.
“I think it's the most outrageous thing - this man is paid to be in there working,” he said.
“And Boris Johnson, by the way took a three week holiday to the Caribbean and came back when he wanted.
“Nobody's taken the whip off him. I don't know why that is.”
Asked if Mr Johnson should lose the whip too he joked: "I think they should be whipped completely.
“I think the whip should be applied to all of them all of the time."
Asked which politician he would most like to see following Matt Hancock to Australia to eat bugs, he replied: “Oh, Suella Braverman!”
After the Home Secretary pushed to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, he said: “She could try landing on a foreign shore and see how she gets on.”
