Media centre

Thursday 28 May 2015

Rail dispute continues as union leadership fails to carry agreed offer

Region & Route:

National

Once again the RMT leadership have failed to get their members to accept a pay offer from Network Rail that they had agreed to in discussions with ACAS.

Mark Carne, Chief Executive said:

“Our people know that there are ways to improve the way work is done.  I have always said that if we work together to realise these benefits there is the possibility to increase pay.  We are therefore ready to get around the table with whoever the RMT consider can speak on behalf of their members.  It is clearly unacceptable for the RMT to massively disrupt the travelling public with strike action when we are ready to continue talks.” 

Network Rail will now restart its contingency planning with the train operators, but if a national rail strike goes ahead, rail services will be severely affected. 

NOTES TO EDITOR

The terms of the latest rejected offer were;

1. Network Rail will pay all staff in the bargaining groups a 1% consolidated increase on their base salary backdated to 1 January 2015 (with a guaranteed minimum increase of £250 consolidated per annum- pro-rata for part-time staff);
2. Network Rail will pay all staff in the bargaining groups a 1.4% consolidated increase, on 1 January 2016;
3. Separately, the unions and Network Rail have committed to continue working with ACAS to discuss and agree smarter, better ways of working. If these are agreed, Network Rail has committed to paying up to 0.7% consolidated on basic salary from 1 January 2016;
4. Network Rail will guarantee that there will be no compulsory redundancies across all members of bargaining groups until 31 December 2016; and
5. Network Rail will enter in to discussion with the unions to agree a comprehensive job security package for the future.

 

NB. Bargaining groups are - operations and customer services in bands 5-8 and equivalent, maintenance bands 5-8 and equivalent and controller grades this includes all signalling and supervisory grades, ECRO’s (1-8), Controllers (1-4), all maintenance grade staff, all operational grades