UK rail workers to strike over jobs and safety

Rail workers are to take four days of strike action immediately after Easter in a bitter row over jobs and working practices, threatening the worst disruption for 16 years, it was announced yesterday evening.

Thousands of members of the Rail Maritime and Transport union (RMT) and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) employed by Network Rail will take action from Tuesday April 6, sparing Easter holiday travellers.

The RMT said its 5,000 members working as signallers will strike between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. and between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on April 6, 7, 8 and 9.

The union's 12,000 NR maintenance workers, and TSSA's 800 members working as supervisors, will stage an all-out strike from 6 a.m. on April 6 to 11.59 p.m. on April 9.

Rail workers will also ban overtime and rest-day working for the duration of the strike.

The strikes were announced despite talks this week at the conciliation service Acas to try to resolve the dispute over NR's plans to cut 1,500 maintenance jobs and change working practices to allow more work to be done in the evenings and weekends.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: "RMT negotiators have worked flat-out to try and reach an agreement that protects rail safety, job security and working agreements in the disputes involving signalling and maintenance staff on Britain's railways.

Despite long hours of talks, we have received nothing concrete from Network Rail that addresses the key issues.

It remains the case that Network Rail, in a drive to slash 21 per cent from their budget, want to axe 1,500 maintenance posts, lump maintenance functions on to over-worked signallers, rip up agreements and impose changes that will quite clearly undermine safety across our railways and make another Hatfield, Potters Bar or Grayrigg disaster an inevitability."

TSSA general secretary Gerry Doherty said: "This is all about safety, the safety of the travelling public and the safety and security of our members at Network Rail. The Office of Rail Regulation agrees with us that these changes pose a threat to safety. It is time that Iain Coucher (NR chief executive) started listening to his staff and the rail regulator."

Union officials said the rail network will "effectively be closed down" by the industrial action.

Mr Crow and Mr Doherty announced the strikes at a joint press conference in London, stressing they were still available for talks to try to head off the action.

Mr Crow said NR would have to prove to his members that the job cuts and changes to working practices would not dilute safety, as well as give assurances there would be no compulsory redundancies.

"The company now has a golden opportunity to resolve this dispute, but our members have been pushed enough. They can hire all the consultants they want, but the real experts are our members, who deliver the work every single day of the week."

"We don't want to spoil people's Easter holidays, or travel arrangements after Easter, but we have to sort out our members' real concerns. This is not about extra money, or wanting better pay and conditions.

This is about the safety of the railways. We don't believe that what Network Rail is doing by extracting jobs will adequately support a safe railway."

Mr Crow said he was on the scene of the Grayrigg incident a few hours after it happened and he never again wanted to see workers and passengers involved in an accident.

Mr Crow said he would rather take industrial action now if it avoided an accident on the railways.