If you’ve been living under a rock (or in a town accessible only by bus) for the past few years, you might be unaware that there are a lot of train strikes in this country. Admittedly, they have calmed down in the past six to nine months, but they’ve by no means stopped altogether.
A few weeks ago, RMT union train managers for Avanti West Coast announced that they planned to walk out over the Christmas period in a dispute over rest days. That strike was called off, after a revised offer was provided by the company, but it seems that that did not put this saga to bed.
The disagreement between the union and train company is based on train managers arguing that they are not compensated fairly for working on days off. Drivers are currently paid a fee of £600 coming in on rest days, and managers are now asking for similar arrangements to be made for them. After Avanti returned with an offer, in time to prevent industrial action this Christmas, RMT members held two referendums and ‘resoundingly rejected’ the proposal.
Now, further strikes have been called for 2025. An RMT spokesperson said: ‘Our members have resoundingly rejected Avanti’s latest offers in two referendums and sustained strike action is now the only way to focus management’s minds on reaching a negotiated settlement with the union.’
If a new agreement is not made, train managers will walk out on New Year’s Eve, January 2, and every Sunday between January 12 and May 25. That’s a total of 22 days across five months.
Avanti has said that this will result in ‘significant disruption’, and that it is ‘disappointed our train managers who are RMT members have voted to decline the very reasonable, revised offer made to them to resolve the rest day working dispute and avoid inconveniencing our customers.
‘We remain open to working with the RMT to resolve the dispute.’
Avanti West Coast run services from London to other major cities including Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, and it is expected that strikes will target these busy routes, although the train provider has said that is will attempt to run a skeleton crew on the affected days to minimise disruption.
We will update this page if these strikes get called off at any point.
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