British train drivers are to stage another two-day strike next month after unions rejected a pay offer from the rail industry.
The walkout on February 1 and 3 will bring the railways to a virtual standstill and deepen the bitter dispute that has fueled a wave of industrial action for the past six months.
Drivers’ union Aslef on Tuesday said a two-year 8 per cent pay offer from industry body Rail Delivery Group, linked to major changes to working practices, was “clearly unacceptable”.
“They want to rip up terms and conditions in return for a real pay cut,” said Mick Whelan, the union’s general secretary.
The RMT union said on Tuesday that train drivers would join Aslef and walk out on the same two days in February.
The announcement of more strikes comes despite signs of progress in separate negotiations between the rail company and the union.
The RMT and TSSA unions last week agreed to “work together” with the RDG towards a pay offer for members.
The railway company has offered the union a 9 percent increase over two years, in line with a separate offer from Network Rail, which owns the UK’s rail infrastructure, according to people briefed on the talks.
Industry executives are optimistic that these discussions can resolve part of the dispute on the railways, even as relations with Aslef worsen.
Whelan said Aslef was open to restarting negotiations, but he called on companies and the government, which set the industry’s finances, to be “serious”.
The RDG’s offer of a 4 percent pay rise for 2023, and a retroactive 4 percent increase for the previous year, comes with a guarantee of no mandatory redundancies until the end of March 2024.
But it is also related to the demands of the drivers to accept significant changes in their working life, especially the contractual commitment to work the Sunday shift.
The industry said the proposal would mean the basic salary for the average driver would rise to almost £65,000 by the end of this year.
Whelan argued that the rail operator’s offer was an attempt to gain “hundreds of millions of pounds” of productivity in exchange for substandard pay offers.
“Irreparable harm has been done to the integrity of the negotiation process and the future ability to negotiate a suitable way forward, but we make ourselves available anyway,” he said.
Aslef has called six days of walkouts since the beginning of the dispute in the summer, and the action in February will affect 15 companies operating the train. The RMT drivers’ strike will affect 14 operators.
Typically, only about 10 percent of services are operational on strike days, as there are few other trained drivers who can come in to run trains.
The Rail Delivery Group said it was disappointed that “a fair and affordable offer . . . was not put to Aslef members”.
“Instead of declaring unnecessary strikes, we ask Aslef to recognize the real financial challenges facing the industry and work with us to deliver better trains,” he added.