A passenger at Euston station in London looks up at the departures board on the first day of the rail strike on Tuesday, June 21, 2022.
Stefan Rousseau / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Stefan Rousseau / AP
A passenger at Euston station in London looks up at the departures board on the first day of the rail strike on Tuesday, June 21, 2022.
Stefan Rousseau / AP
LONDON – Tens of thousands of rail workers were laid off in Britain on Tuesday, bringing the train network to the fore in the country’s biggest transport strike in three decades.
Some 40,000 cleaners, signers, maintenance workers and station workers have staged a 24-hour strike, with two more scheduled for Thursday and Saturday. Adding to the pain for commuters, London Underground services were also affected by a walk on Tuesday.
The disputes focus on wages, working conditions and job security as British rail lines struggle to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
Main stations were mostly empty on Tuesday morning, with only about 20% of passenger trains scheduled to run.
Nurse manager Priya Goosystem is at London Bridge station, trying to get back to her home in the south of the city.
“I definitely won’t be able to take the bus because they’re packed. I’ll have to take an Uber,” she said. “My day has been horrible. It’s going to be a long day and I still have a day to work.”
The strike has disrupted the plans of staff trying to get to work, students during exam season and music lovers heading to the Glastonbury Festival, which begins Wednesday in south-west England.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of industry body UKHospitality, said the walk would put restaurants, cafes and bars in much-needed business.
“The fragility of consumer confidence will be hit even harder, and thousands of people who are able and willing to spend money at hotel venues around the country will be prevented from doing so, while employees will certainly struggle to get jobs,” she said.
As of March, there were almost 1 billion train journeys in the UK. But that number is far below previous COVID-19 levels, and training companies, which have been steady with government support for the past two years, are looking for ways to cut costs and staff. the.
Last-minute talks on Monday failed to produce a breakthrough. The Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport said it would not accept rail companies’ offer of a 3% increase, far below the rate of inflation, which currently stands at 9%.
The union accuses the Conservative government of refusing to give rail companies enough flexibility to offer substantial pay increases.
The government has said it is not taking part in the negotiations, but has warned that the large increase will trigger a spiral in wages that drive inflation even higher.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused unions of “harming the very people they claim to be helping” and called for “a reasonable compromise in the interests of the British people and the rail workforce.”
