Rail strike looms as union prepares to ballot workers

Network Rail defends ‘fair’ offer

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THE threat of the first national rail strike for 14 years was raised yesterday when the industry’s biggest union announced that it was balloting 17,000 workers for industrial action.

The Rail Maritime and Transport Union said maintenance and signalling staff will vote whether to launch a campaign of industrial action in two separate disputes. The result of both ballots will be known on May 22 and strikes could start a week later – right at the beginning of the holiday season.

Ballot papers will be sent to over 12,000 infrastructure workers after they rejected an “unacceptable” offer from Network Rail on harmonising terms and conditions. And 5,000 signallers and other operational staff will be asked if they want to strike over pay and conditions after rejecting an improved offer the union said was worth just 0.1% in the first year of a two-year pay deal.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow said: “The company has been using the talks to drive down our members’ conditions and they can hardly be surprised that their pathetic offer was thrown out by a margin of more than 100 to one. The company is now saying that our members can stay on their existing terms but they are already moving to sneak inferior conditions in through the back door. We know that means an attack on everyone’s terms and conditions, not least because the company is looking to cut its maintenance budget by up to 12% year on year.”

Network Rail director of human resources Peter Bennett said it made a “fair and reasonable” pay offer to signallers worth 4.8% this year and the rate of inflation-plus-0.5% next year. NR said it was in talks with unions about standardising more than 50 sets of terms and conditions for maintenance workers