Rail strike: Agency workers may be called in to replace strike workers, report says | UK News
Agency workers could be called in to replace the railroad workers on strike, according to a report.
Labor’s Tony Blair introduced a restriction on the use of agency staff to replace striking workers while he was prime minister.
But Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told The Sunday Telegraph that ministers were looking at ways to repeal this.
It comes as the Railway, Maritime and Transport Workers union prepares to go on strike on June 21, 23 and 25 to dispute over wages and redundancies.
More than 40,000 employees at Network Rail and 13 train operators are expected to quit, in what the union has described as “the largest rail strike in modern history”.
Ministers are introducing legal changes that could come into effect “during this particular time of dispute” if it continues, to prevent the public from being “ransom”.
Last month, it was reported that the government also wants a new law requiring a minimum number of railway employees to work during the strike.
This would require an Act of Parliament, so it would be a slower process than repealing the law banning agency employees from filling out strike workers.
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Mr Shapps told the paper: “I cannot overemphasize our determination to get the right outcome for the traveling public ultimately on this, even if the unions insist on giving the land. water overcomes considerable pain in the meantime.”
He said any intervention was unlikely to apply to the three announced strikes but added: “If this action continues, then further measures will certainly be introduced in the meeting.” this particular dispute, if it cannot be resolved”.
“When you look at the people who work on the railway, many of them have done an extraordinary job,” Mr. Shapps said.
“They are being led by union barons, in some cases radical Marxists, who are determined to turn this into some kind of war, as they see it, with the Tory government. .”
