Last night, union baron Mick Lynch raged on live television as he confessed that many railway drivers who are going on strike next week for an 11% wage raise are already making more than £54,000.
When Piers Morgan questioned him about his own income and bonuses, which are reported to total £124,000 per year, the RMT boss grew angry.
‘I’m simply a working-class person heading a trade union in a battle about employment, wages, and conditions,’ he explained.
On strike days on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, 40,000 members of Mr Lynch’s union will bring six days of disruption to Britain’s trains, with half of the network shut down totally.
Thousands more workers from other unions will also go on strike, causing the Tube to be crippled.
In response to a nationwide push to save more than £2 billion across Britain’s railway network, the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union has sought 11% pay raises for staff and a promise of no compulsory layoffs.
Mr Lynch was accused of keeping the country hostage over a wage raise at a time when millions of people are unable to work next week and are trying to make ends meet as a result of the biggest cost-of-living crisis since the 1970s.
He retaliated by stating that the majority of union members on strike next week earn an average of £31,000 per year, but when Piers pointed out that train drivers on strike make more than £54,000 per year, Mr Lynch admitted: ‘Some undoubtedly earn more than that.’
‘A lot of your employees make a lot of money,’ the Talk TV anchor stated. Is this the correct moment for you to be holding the country hostage for an 11 percent salary raise at a time when families are genuinely suffering to feed their children and food bank lines are growing longer?’
He also sought to know why Lynch was paid £124,000 per year plus benefits, despite the fact that his salary is £84,000 and his higher total package ‘includes National Insurance, tax, and pension payments.’ ‘Everyone’s bundle includes that, what are you talking about?’ Piers said.
When Lynch said, “Why don’t you tell everyone what you make if you’re asking me what I earn?” Mr Morgan responded, “I’ll tell you why, it’s because I’m not leading my members on a strike that would bring great trouble to the British people.”
According to Sajid Javid, the transport disruption would make it more difficult for frontline workers, such as physicians and nurses, to go to work.
The industrial action, according to a top NHS leader, will ‘probably end up killing people’ since it will increase ambulance delays.
Half of Britain’s train services will be shut down on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday next week during the walkouts, with those that do operate a reduced service only running between 7.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m.
Due to the knock-on effects of the RMT union’s strike by 40,000 members, travel on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday will be severely hampered.
Because of a 24-hour strike by the RMT and Unite, Transport for London has’strongly advised’ Londoners not to go on the London Underground on Tuesday. The ‘largest railway strike since the 1980s,’ Mr Javid claimed, will ‘bring the country to a halt’ and ‘put patients at danger.’
‘The disruption these strikes will cause will make it more difficult for physicians, nurses, caregivers, and other healthcare personnel to come into work,’ he said in a letter to Labour health spokesperson Wes Streeting.
‘They will also make it more difficult for people to visit them for necessary treatments.’ Some of these patients will have needed to schedule time off from work to attend their visits.’
Both the London Ambulance Service Trust and the South Central Ambulance Service Foundation Trust have been placed on high alert, indicating that they are under significant stress.
Last night, Downing Street claimed that the government was not simply’standing by’ as rail strikes approached.
‘Ministers are keeping a close eye on the issue,’ said a No10 spokesperson. ‘Industry is proposing daily negotiations with the unions, and we want the unions to participate in those talks and return to the table.’
‘The Government is not the employer in this situation, and it remains the truth that we cannot participate in the discussions,’ the spokesperson added.
Mr Shapps, the Transport Secretary, stated that striking employees were committing a “act of self-harm,” that union executives were pressuring them to do so “under false pretenses,” and that the strikes were “the last thing” they should do.
He told workers at a train terminal in London that striking was foolish because of the new era of working from home, in which the trains are ‘in a struggle’ with Zoom, and that they shouldn’t risk losing their jobs.
‘Bully boy methods will not wash with our union when the fact is our members are fighting for their employment, salary, and a safe railway suitable for the future,’ said Manuel Cortes, president of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association.
The Unite union has warned that strikes might now move to London’s bus system, citing worries that a consultation on plans to eliminate a number of routes in the city could result in the loss of hundreds of jobs.
‘These strikes are not just an attempt to block measures that are crucial to the network’s future, and meant to inflict damage at the worst possible moment, but they are also an extraordinary act of self-harm by the union leadership,’ Mr Shapps said this morning.
Make no mistake: unlike the previous 25 years, when the railway sector took expanding passenger demand for granted, now the railway is fighting for survival.’
‘If this Tory administration was at all serious about halting what appears to be a summer of dissatisfaction on our trains, Shapps would have made it clear in his address that they are open to engage with us and sister unions,’ Mr Cortes answered less than two hours later.
Unfortunately, and maybe unfortunately, what we heard from the Transport Secretary resembled threats and intimidation of workers rather than productive engagement.’
‘The threats made today by Grant Shapps to railway employees’ lives and right to strike are reprehensible,’ RMT general secretary Mick Lynch continued, ‘and will make RMT members even more determined to win this dispute.’
Mr Shapps has to act like a sensible Transport Secretary who is ready to engage with the union and assist us to a negotiated settlement, rather than playing to the gallery for his own political goals.’
Downing Street, on the other hand, said there was still time to find a solution to what it called a “entirely self-defeating strike,” but ministers would not be directly involved in the talks – and that proposed legislation to allow the use of agency workers on the railways if the strike continues would take ‘weeks rather than months.’
Union bus drivers are threatening walkouts over plans to slash services in the city, adding to the agony for commuters as Britain prepares for the worst rail strikes in a generation next week.
Unite, a trade union, has threatened strike action until a solution is found to proposals to slash bus lines in London, which they believe might result in the loss of hundreds of jobs.
Bus drivers may strike over the loss of overtime and rest day work, which are used to raise wages, according to Unite, which has requested guarantees that no jobs would be lost and that take-home pay will not be reduced under the new plans.
TfL announced proposals to reshape 78 routes in the central and inner London bus network earlier this month as part of government-mandated cost-cutting measures.
Although the consultation period doesn’t conclude until July 12, meaning any industrial action won’t conflict with next week’s debilitating walkouts, the potential of more public transportation strikes will give both employees and travel executives a new issue to deal with in the coming months.
‘These cuts are an effort to make London’s bus workers pay the price for the epidemic, and we reject them completely,’ said Unite general secretary Sharon Graham.
The possibility of Unite conducting strike action to safeguard our members is properly explored.
Bus service cuts usually hurt the people who can least afford it: our poorest areas.
TfL’s plans must be decisively rejected by the mayor and the London Assembly, who must stand up to the Westminster government.’