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A four-day strike will cripple most services on Britain’s railways next week, the start of the biggest disruption to the network since the late 1980s as unions begin a month of near-constant industrial action either side of Christmas.
Railway officials have urged passengers not to travel on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday as the RMT, TSSA and United unions take industrial action in a long-running dispute over pay, working practices and job security.
Almost half of the railway network will be closed on those days and only a fifth of services will run during the limited hours of 7.30 am to 6.30 pm. There will also be knock-on disruptions on Thursday morning.
But that’s just the beginning. Network Rail, the infrastructure operator, has warned of service reductions and some disruption every day from December 13 to January 8, including other nearby network closures in the first week of the new year as commuters return to work.
A mix of limited industrial action and annual pre-planned Christmas engineering works for the rest of that period will leave the railways with a reduced schedule.
The action would be the biggest disruption to the network since the 1989 national rail strike, said Roger Ford, industry and technology editor of specialist rail publication, Modern Railways.
Railway workers, who have staged a series of strikes since the summer, will be joined by workers in other sectors, including postal and NHS staff and civil servants, as the UK is hit by the worst industrial unrest in more than three decades. 1 million working days to be lost in strike action in December.
Air travelers were braced for long queues at passport control over Christmas as Border Force staff at six airports walked out from December 23 to December 31. Airports and airlines have warned of disruption, but are awaiting details of the Home Office’s contingency plans. That includes bringing about 600 soldiers to staff passport kiosks before deciding whether to cancel any flights.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said on Friday that the government needs to be careful about accepting calls to raise public sector pay as it hampers efforts to control rising inflation.
“We need to be really careful not to agree to pay demands that have the opposite of the intended effect because they lock in high inflation,” he told the Financial Times’ Global Boardroom Summit.
Business has warned about the economic impact of the strike, with the hospitality industry particularly concerned about the impact on its busiest trading periods.
UKHospitality, an industry body, has estimated that around 30 per cent of Christmas bookings are canceled in the days leading up to the strike, with revenue lost to a total of £1.5bn.
Clive Watson, co-founder of City Pub Group, which operates 45 venues across the country, said the disruption would be “a huge blow to the industry”. “It is the continued decline of industry strength that is most disappointing.” Watson estimated that its central London locations would lose up to 40 per cent of expected revenue in the days of the strike.
Strike action will be “really painful” for the 120 restaurants, bars and retailers at Boxpark’s three pop-up sites across London, chief executive Simon Champion said. “Our whole strategy is to position ourselves close to train stations so that will be really disruptive.”
“[The strikes] Effectively ruined the whole week,” said Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality. “The impact for the sector in terms of revenue loss is approaching the impact seen with Omicron [coronavirus variant] It’s been a year.”
Network Rail chief executive Andrew Haines said the RMT, the biggest rail union with more than 40,000 members, had “deliberately chosen to ruin Christmas for millions of passengers and businesses”.
But the RMT’s general secretary, Mick Lynch, last week blamed the government for preventing industry management from offering a higher pay deal in talks aimed at averting a walkout and for insisting on tough conditions on rail reforms. “There is no possibility of resolving this dispute… we have been blocked by the government,” he said.
The FT revealed that employers had planned to offer RMTs a 10 per cent pay rise but were blocked by the government, which controls the industry’s finances.
Network Rail eventually offered 9 per cent over two years and 8 per cent to train operators. The smaller TSSA union has recommended its members accept only the Network Rail offer, while the RMT has said no offer is acceptable. It has put the Network Rail deal to its members and urged them to reject it in a vote that closes on Monday.
The government said the offers on the table were “good” compromises that represented a significant increase in pay. “The situation is incredibly disappointing, and unfair to the public, passengers and rail employees who want and deserve a deal,” it added.
Relations between industry and the RMT could worsen next week as Network Rail resumes efforts to push through reforms to its maintenance workforce, pausing consultations with affected staff during recent talks with the union.
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