THE RMT rail union announced yesterday that it is to put a new offer from Network Rail to members in an electronic referendum with a recommendation to reject which will close next Monday, December 12 at Noon.
All strike action planned for December 13, 14, 16 and 17 will go ahead as planned.
Furthermore, further strike action will take place and members will be instructed not to book on from between 18.00 hours on December 24 through to 05.59 hours December 27 2022.
This strike coincides with the wind down of passenger services and the commencement of engineering works. All scheduled overtime bans have been cancelled.
On the train operating companies there has been no improved offer from the Rail Delivery Group who still await a mandate from the government. As a result, all scheduled strike action will go ahead.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said that it was unfortunate that the union had been compelled to take this action due to the continuing intransigence of the employers.
‘We remain available for talks in order to resolve these issues but we will not bow to pressure from the employers and the government to the detriment of our members,’ he said.
Speaking on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday morning he said: ‘It’s a generalised attack on working people. They are having their wages lowered against inflation and often their conditions ripped up.
‘In our industry and the CWU in the Royal Mail and British Telecom it’s not just about pay. They are offering very paltry pay rises in return for chopping up terms and conditions and changes to working practices.
‘It’s a general attack by the employers and by the government and by organisations that are coordinating what they are doing.
‘So it would be foolish of unions not to coordinate themselves in response to those attacks.
‘People are being made poorer and sometimes impoverished while they are working, using foodbanks, having to rely on state benefits.
‘So the price of labour is not at the right price in this country and what the unions have got to do is correct that.
‘Because if people are living on subsidy and living on food banks and other support mechanisms then they are not being paid the right amount of money for their work. And that’s exactly what’s happening in the railways, and the unions have a duty to coordinate what they do.’
He went on: ‘My members are living on extremely low wages some of them. Not every one is earning the same money, but what everyone is experiencing is a lowering of their conditions.
‘Now we regret the inconvenience that we are causing, but this inconvenience is being caused by the government who are running the playbook and the strategy for the railway companies and directing what’s going on.
‘They held back even these paltry offers to the last minute so they know that it’s very difficult for us to deal with these offers. We gave them three weeks to make the offer and they held that back.’
He added: ‘The Christmas action we’ve put on does not largely affect passenger services. The passenger railway runs down and closes in the evening of December 24th so what we’re targeting is the engineering works of Network Rail.’
