Rail strike: Country must stay the course, says Boris Johnsonon June 21, 2022 at 3:39 pm

Boris Johnson has said the country must “stay the course” during the rail strikes, as he urged rail bosses and unions to agree on a deal.

Downing Street said the PM believes pay rises in line with inflation are “not feasible across the board” now.

The RMT union is holding three days of strikes over cuts to jobs, conditions, real-terms pay and pensions.

Millions of commuters across England, Wales and Scotland are experiencing disruption to travel.

Passengers are being advised not to travel unless it is essential, as around 40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at Network Rail and 13 train operators have walked out.

Only 20% of trains are running after staff walked out at midnight and many areas have no trains at all, including most of Scotland and Wales, the whole of Cornwall and Dorset, and places such as Chester, Hull, Lincoln and Worcester.

With strikes also affecting London Underground lines on Tuesday, many stations that are normally crammed with commuters are almost deserted except for union picket lines.

Trains that do run are starting later and finishing much earlier than usual, operating between 07:30 and 18:30.

Strikes are set to continue on Thursday and Saturday.

Mr Johnson – speaking at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday – said without modernisation to the industry, train operators risked going bust and passengers faced ever-increasing prices that could lead to them abandoning rail travel.

“I say this to the country as a whole, we need to get ready to stay the course,” he said. “Because these reforms, these improvements in the way we run our railways, are in the interests of the travelling public, they will help to cut costs for fare payers.”

The prime minister said the strikes were “so wrong and so unnecessary”, making it “more difficult for people to get to work, risking people’s appointments, making it more difficult for kids to sit exams – all sorts of unnecessary aggravations”.

Downing Street said the prime minister believed the government had to “work within our means” and resist calls for pay rises which would lead to greater inflation later.

The RMT is calling for a pay rise of 7%, while employers have offered a maximum of 3%.

RMT boss Mick Lynch apologised for the disruption to passengers, but accused the government, which owns Network Rail, of actively preventing employers and the union from reaching a settlement.

Mr Lynch told the BBC: “We’re sorry for that [disruption people are facing], we don’t want that to happen.”

But he said they were facing “mass job cuts, chopping up of our terms and conditions we’ve negotiated with the companies and many of our people haven’t had a pay rise for two years”.

Marta Kotlarek, from Holywell, Flintshire, says she has had to take time off work to drive her sons to their exams during the rail strike.

Jakub, 16, and Michal, 18, usually take the train from Flint to school in Colwyn Bay. But with GCSE and A-level exams on the morning of the strikes on Tuesday and Thursday, they couldn’t make the journey this week.

“This is a crucial year for them… they are a little bit worried,” says Marta.

She says there’s no point in doing the hour-long round trip twice, so she’s waiting around until they finish their exams before driving back to Holywell.

As commuters switched from trains to cars to avoid the impact of the strike, some places saw long queues on the roads.

Location technology firm TomTom said congestion levels at 11:00 BST were higher than at the same time last week in a number of urban areas.

London congestion increased from 38% to 51%, in Cardiff it went up from 24% to 29% and Manchester saw a rise from 27% to 34%. The percentages reflect the additional time needed for journeys compared to free-flowing traffic.

There were long queues on outer London sections of the M1, M4, A4 and A40.

But National Highways told the BBC that many parts of the motorway network have been quieter than a normal Tuesday, as employees take advantage of post-pandemic work-from-home policies.

Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told the BBC there was a “pay offer on the table, the door is open” and said he wanted the law changed to allow people within a company to fill roles left vacant by striking employees.

He said: “We will change the law very quickly within the next couple of months… what we’re really primarily talking about here is transferrable skills.”

He added he did not meet with unions as that was for employers to do, describing calls for him to come to the negotiating table as “a stunt”.

How are you affected by the rail strikes? Do you have an important event to attend during the strike period? What alternative travel arrangements have you made? Tell us by emailing: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

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