Thousands of UK rail workers are walking out to seek pay rises and better working conditions. Travel should only be undertaken “if absolutely necessary,” warns the RMT union. Most Brits don’t understand that.
Thousands of rail workers in the UK have started a four-day strike. An eerie calm reigned in normally busy London train stations on Tuesday – the first normal working day of 2023 after the New Year holidays. According to the RMT union, 40,000 employees of the state railway Network Rail and 14 private railways followed the strike call.
RMT has called two 48-hour strikes, on Tuesday and Wednesday and on Friday and Saturday. There should also be disruptions on Thursday, because another railway union, Aslef, has called for a five-day walkout. Network Rail warned of “serious disruptions” this week on large parts of the rail network. Travel should only be undertaken “if absolutely necessary”.
RMT is calling for significant salary increases and improvements in working conditions in view of persistently high inflation in the country. The union accuses the country’s conservative government of intervening in negotiations with companies to prevent an agreement.
Transportation Secretary Mark Harper dismissed that account. He called on the unions to return to the negotiating table. The call for a strike is “unhelpful and harms the rail industry and the interests of workers,” he told Sky News.
Rail workers, like workers in a variety of sectors, have gone on strike several times in recent months. In December, the healthcare sector was particularly affected. The government sometimes used the military for ambulance trips, for example. In addition, postmen and employees in the telecommunications sector also stopped working.
Border police also went on strike at several airports over the holidays. Here, too, the government called on the military for help. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has openly spoken out against sharp pay rises in the public sector – it would only fuel inflation further.
Around two-thirds of Britons support the health sector strikes, according to a Yougov poll published at the end of December. There is less understanding for the strike at the railways, only 43 percent of those surveyed supported it.
