The Rail Delivery Group has said that train companies have offered the RMT union a framework agreement that would support pay increases up to 8%.
The plans will also see ‘vital and long overdue' changes to working agreements to secure the future of the railways.
Included in the plans is a guarantee on no compulsory redundancies until the 1st April 2024.
These proposals give the union an opportunity to call of planned action which is currently set to start on the 13th December.
The reformed principles include
- Current voluntary working agreements on the railways will be formalised
- Use of part-time contracts and flexible working rosters to encourage a more diverse workforce
- A new Multi-Skilled Station Worker Role will be created with station staff trained and equipped to take on a range of responsibilities.
A spokesperson from the Rail Delivery Group, said: “This is a fair and affordable offer in challenging times, providing a significant uplift in salary for staff. If approved by the RMT, implementation could be fast-tracked to ensure staff go into Christmas secure in the knowledge that they will receive this enhanced pay award early in the New Year alongside a guarantee of job security until April 2024.
“With revenue stuck at 20% below pre-pandemic levels and many working practices unchanged in decades, taxpayers who have contributed £1,800 per household to keep the railway running in recent years, will balk at continuing to pump billions of pounds a year into an industry that desperately needs to move forward with long-overdue reforms and that alienates potential customers with sustained industrial action.
“We urge the RMT leadership to put this offer to its membership and remove the threat of a month of industrial action over Christmas that will upset the travel plans of millions and cause real hardship for businesses which depend on Christmas custom. Instead, we urge the RMT to move forward together with us and so we can give our people a pay rise and deliver an improved railway with a sustainable, long-term future for those who work on it.”
RMT and the other rail unions need to get real. Rail workers are wealthy & pampered compared with most of the UK’s workforce, enjoying benefits the rest of us can only dream about. It’s clear from recent travel on lines that I’ve been familiar with for decades that ridership is falling rather than increasing, because railways’ reliability is so poor. Only the naive or desperate plan a rail journey on a Saturday or, worse still, a Sunday. The Christmas Day shutdown has turned into a 10-day shutdown between 24 Dec & 2 Jan (at least), even though the rest of us have to work those days – without o/t. As services are cut back further, prices go up & reliability worsens, passenger levels will plummet & the only solution will be drastic pruning of the railway system itself, a new Beeching in effect. Once again, rail union militancy ensures that the axe will fall hardest on the poorest in the land.
Yes, let’s all use our cars on the empty roads. All those rail workers are already on a million pound a year pay. The managers on a few thousand a year. Get rid of the unions and their bloody rail safety . We could bring back 7 day working and take their leave away . No Christmas holiday either. If they dont agree transport them to Australia again. Just like it was 150 years ago before trade unions started. The work accidents would also help to reduce the overcrowding in this country. Get poor children to start work at the age of 6 again, the money saved on education would be huge. Well done Steve let’s go back to the good old days.
Your quite right ,the unions have to give on working practices, you try getting a train on Sundays always cancelled due to staff shortages, if they don’t like the job go somewhere else and try to get the pay they get as for public support that is dwindling away.