Rail unions vow to fight government strike threat

Rail unions have reacted with fury to a government threat to make strike motion unlawful unless a minimum amount amount of train personnel do the job through a walkout.

Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps explained a law would safeguard freight shipments of items this kind of as foods and gas.

But unions vowed “fierce resistance” to any suppress on the appropriate to strike, calling the move “authoritarian” and “desperate nonsense”.

Some 40,000 rail staff are staying balloted more than using industrial motion.

The ballot of Nationwide Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Staff (RMT) associates closes on Tuesday and the final results are most likely to be known the pursuing working day.

The RMT statements that the strike – involving customers of 15 educate running corporations and Community Rail – could be the biggest “in modern history” and bring the region “to a standstill”.

Mr Shapps told The Sunday Telegraph that unions were using strikes as a initial vacation resort alternatively than a final measure.

He cited a promise that the Conservative Celebration produced in its 2019 manifestothat it “will have to have that a minimum support operates throughout transport strikes”.

He explained to the newspaper: “We had a pledge in there about minimum amount support ranges. If they truly acquired to that point then minimum amount support concentrations would be a way to work in the direction of defending all those freight routes and people sorts of items.

“We really significantly hope they will wake up and smell the coffee.”

However, RMT basic secretary Mick Lynch claimed “any attempt” by Mr Shapps to “make efficient strike action illegal on the railways will be met with the fiercest resistance from RMT and the broader trade union movement”.

He was joined by Unite standard secretary Sharon Graham who explained the union “will confront head-on and by whichever means essential, any even further attacks on the ideal to strike”.

She termed it “a cynical, authoritarian move”, adding: “A worker’s correct to withdraw their labour is inalienable in any democracy worthy of its name.”

Meanwhile, Manuel Cortes, basic secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, stated: “What we are viewing listed here is desperate nonsense from the Tories who have selected to attack doing the job people today in our union who stored the railways functioning each individual solitary working day of the pandemic.”

‘Pay freezes’

In its manifesto, the Conservatives mentioned: “Rail personnel should have a good deal, but it is not truthful to enable the trade unions undermine the livelihoods of other folks.”

The RMT said the strike is over fork out, conditions and ailments as perfectly as prepared work cuts. It claimed its associates are dealing with “pay freezes, threats to positions and attacks on their terms and conditions”.

Community Rail options to lose 2,500 maintenance jobs in order to make £2bn really worth of personal savings.

Community Rail – which maintains the railways and carries out vital features this sort of as signalling – has not been involved in a nationwide strike due to the fact 1994. There are considerations a walkout by its employees could influence both of those travellers and the movement of items by educate, such as gasoline and meals.

Despite the fact that rail can make up a relatively smaller proportion of all freight, this has been expanding due to the fact of the lorry driver scarcity, and environmental things to consider.