Ministers and Network Rail have given no sign of compromise over the ongoing industrial action as the first of five days of strikes saw 80% of trains across the country cancelled.
Members of the RMT union began a 48-hour strike on Tuesday (3 January), with another 48-hour walkout due to take place on Friday and Saturday. Members of drivers’ union ASLEF at 15 train companies will strike on Thursday in a dispute over pay.
On Tuesday morning Network Rail’s chief negotiator Tim Shoveller suggested to the BBC’s Today programme that a deal was close.
However, he was merely expressing a hope that RMT members who voted by 63.6% in December to reject Network Rail’s below inflation pay offer would change their minds.
He said: ‘We only need 2,000 people who voted no last time to change their vote and the deal will pass.’
Transport secretary Mark Harper also indicated that the RMT should have accepted last month’s pay offer and said the union should ‘get off the picket line and got back round the negotiating table to hammer out a deal on reform and pay with the employers’.
However, he refused to say that the Government would allow the employers to make an increased offer on pay, claiming that this would require a ‘bottomless pit of taxpayers' money’.
Last month, the Department for Transport announced that regulated rail fares would increase by 5.9% – 6.4 percentage points below last July’s RPI inflation figure – as part of what it called the ‘biggest government intervention ever to keep rail fares down’.
This compares with the 5% pay offer made by Network Rail and 4% offered by rail firms, with both offering a further 4% next year.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch accused ministers of blocking a deal and doing nothing over the Christmas period to bring the dispute to an end. He said: ‘I'll come and meet the transport secretary whenever he wishes to - I could meet him in 20 minutes.’
On Monday the RMT said that both Network Rail and the rail firms ‘are being directly blocked by government ministers from producing an acceptable proposal on job security, pay and working conditions’.
It pointed out that it had reached pay deals with a large number of employers where the government is not involved.
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