You can’t run a modern railway on cuts to pay, jobs and conditions
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ASLEF Train drivers on strike Wednesday 4th October and an overtime ban all this week.
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“Our members are not prepared to accept a pay offer based on mass job cuts and major attacks on their terms and conditions”
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“The Government and the employers are to blame for strike action by train drivers” said Martin Mayer, Secretary of Sheffield Trade Union Council. “They’ve not had a pay rise for 4 years – the offer currently on the table to ASLEF is still way below inflation meaning it’s another real terms pay cut for rail workers.”
ASLEF slams the Government and the rail companies for treating us “with contempt”
“The Government and the Employers have not made a fair and sensible pay offer to train drivers who have not had one for four years – since 2019 – while prices have soared in that time by more than 12%.” said Mick Whelan, ASLEF’s General Secretary. Private operators and rolling stock companies (who own the trains and lease them back) have continued to pay out dividends to their shareholders, extracting profits from the railways. “This shows the contempt in which the companies, and the government, hold passengers and staff and public transport in Britain,” said Mick Whelan.
Our privatised railways are in crisis, costing us a fortune and they want to make rail workers pay!
“This is no way to run a modern railway – on the backs of the workers who keep our trains running,” said Martin Mayer, Secretary Sheffield TUC. “Train driver drivers and other rail workers employed by the privatised train operators haven’t had a pay rise for 4 years and are being offered rises of only 4 or 5% for 2022 and 2023 – with unacceptable strings attached. As well as attacks on hard-won conditions, the Government wants to close most if not all ticket offices with a huge loss of jobs.”
This isn’t “modernisation”. It’s taking a wrecking ball to our railways.
The Government claims they are trying to “modernise” the railways. In fact they are trying to cut the real price of labour to stem the huge cost of running an inefficient, privatised railway where billions of taxpayers’ money is simply going into shareholders’ pockets instead of rail expansion and improvement,” said Martin Mayer. “We need to be investing in a better, greener, high quality rail network with well-paid and motivated staff – and to do that we need to bring the railways back into public ownership where they belong.”
Don’t make workers pay for inflation – we need protection from it
“This Government is trying to hold down workers’ pay to solve an inflation crisis that is not of their making. Meanwhile the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Last year top Chief Executives receive an average 39% pay rise! Where is the fairness in that? Workers need protecting from the current cost of living crisis. That must mean wage rises that at least match inflation,” said Martin Mayer.