{"id":30486,"date":"2024-04-24T00:37:45","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T14:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=30486"},"modified":"2024-04-24T00:37:45","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T14:37:45","slug":"aslef-announces-new-strike-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=30486","title":{"rendered":"ASLEF announces new strike action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Train drivers who are members of ASLEF<\/a>, the train drivers\u2019 trade union will walk out in another series of one-day strikes, coupled with a six-day overtime ban, at the 16 passenger operators with whom the union is still in dispute.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ASLEF says the dispute is to get train drivers, who have not had an increase in salary for five years, since their last pay deals expired in 2019, the pay rise. In response, the Rail Delivery Group<\/a> has described it as \u201cwholly unnecessary strike action\u201d and that it \u201ccontinues to seek a fair agreement with the ASLEF leadership\u201d.<\/p>\n

ASLEF has said that after members in February voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action, it has asked train operating companies to come to the table and talk, and that they have refused.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is now a year since we sat in a room with the train companies \u2013 and a year since we rejected the risible offer they made and which they admitted, privately, was designed to be rejected,\u201d said Mick Whelan, ASLEF\u2019s general secretary.<\/p>\n

In a release, ASLEF said: \u201cWe first balloted for industrial action in June 2022, after three years without a pay rise.\u00a0It took eight one-day strikes to persuade the TOCs to come to the table and talk.\u00a0Our negotiating team \u2013 GS Mick Whelan, AGS Simon Weller, and EC president Dave Calfe \u2013 met the RDG, a lobby group that acts for some of the employers, under the framework of the Rail Industry Recovery Group, on eight occasions \u2013 the last being on Wednesday 26 April last year. That was followed by the TOCs\u2019 \u2018land grab\u2019 for all our terms & conditions on Thursday 27 April \u2013 which was immediately rejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince then train drivers have voted, again and again, to take action to get a pay rise,\u2019 says Mick. \u2018That\u2019s why Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary, is being disingenuous when he says that offer should have been put to members. Drivers would not vote to strike if they thought an offer was acceptable. They don\u2019t. And that offer \u2013 now a year old \u2013 is dead in the water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members will walk out at c2c, Greater Anglia, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern\/Gatwick Express, South Western Railway main line and depot drivers, and SWR Island Line on Tuesday 7 May; at\u00a0Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railways; CrossCountry; East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway; and West Midlands Trains on Wednesday 8 May;\u00a0and\u00a0at\u00a0LNER, Northern Trains, and TransPennine Trains on Thursday 9 May.<\/p>\n

Members will also refuse to work non-contractual overtime from Monday 6 to Saturday 11 May.<\/p>\n

Mick added: \u201cOur pay deals at these companies ran out in 2019. Train drivers at these TOCs have not had an increase in salary for five years. That is completely wrong. The employers \u2013 and the government \u2013 think we are going to give up and run away. They\u2019re wrong. In the words of Tom Petty, we won\u2019t back down\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, a spokesperson for Rail Delivery Group said: \u201cThis wholly unnecessary strike action called by the ASLEF leadership will sadly disrupt customers and businesses once again, while further\u00a0damaging the railway at a time when taxpayers are continuing to contribute an extra \u00a354 million a week just to keep services running.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe continue to seek a fair agreement with the ASLEF leadership which both rewards our people, gives our customers more reliable services and makes sure the railway isn\u2019t taking more than its fair share from taxpayers.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Train drivers who are members of ASLEF, the train drivers\u2019 trade union will walk out in another series of one-day strikes, coupled with a six-day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":30487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[7,11],"class_list":["post-30486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rail-news","tag-transport","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/30487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}