Train strikes: RMT Boss says pay offer 'not acceptable'

Well, the R&T General Secretary, Mick Lynch, joins me now. A very good morning to you, Mick Lynch. First of all, just how much support do you expect to have for the walkout today? Just how disruptive will this strike be? Well, our members will be out all over the country. They'll be on picket lines up and down the rail network. We've had a very strong mandate to renew our action in the last week or so, a nine-to-one vote on a heavy turnout. So our members are up and down the picket lines, taking the action as instructed by the union and as voted for by them. And so the action is solid, and it will be as long as this campaign goes on.

People watching will know that this dispute has been going on for a long time. How close are you now to a resolution? Well, we had an offer put to us, the second or third offer, I think, in this process, which we have declined to accept, because the stipulations that were put on it were not acceptable to our people. We had a good conversation about that throughout the union. So we're looking for a fresh offer from the company. We're looking for a new set of negotiations to start. We haven't got a settlement for the drivers, as you saw yesterday, with the As Lef strike, and we haven't got that for the other grades in the RMT strikes as well. So there's a lot of anger in the rail industry at the minute.

Both unions are still campaigning. Their members are voting in heavy numbers to continue the action. So there's a lot of strength for Thielen, and it's up to the government to unblock this dispute, because they have the final say on what is proposed at the table. In their contracts with these companies, they stipulate what the negotiating position is. They stipulate what the offers are. And those offers simply aren't good enough at the minute. They don't recognise the cost of living crisis, where inflation has gone.

And what they want from our members in terms of giving up their terms and conditions are simply not acceptable. So there's a long way to go, but we're available for dialogue and negotiation at any time. The government says they want you to put this latest offer to a ballot of members. Why aren't you doing that? Because it's not acceptable. It doesn't meet the demands in the dispute. They know that. They knew that when it was offered.

And certainly when they clarified what they meant by it, what they want us to do is call off the dispute and then go into another set of negotiations without any leverage at the table. We simply can't do that. You don't disarm yourself halfway through a campaign, and they're asking us to call off all our action to declare that the dispute is over when only half of the issues have been negotiated. So that's not possible. We're prepared to talk to them and we're prepared to go into a process, but we're not prepared to call off all of our action and declare the dispute over when the issues have not been settled. So they've put a lot of money into this dispute. They've spent over 1.

25 billion on this dispute, and they've lost that money for the economy and for the railway based on a dogma. What we need is a practical solution to the dispute so that we can get the railways back to normal. And the government needs to show a bit of good will and flexibility and stop wasting the public's money on this campaign and propping up private sector train operators while they're making profit. Our members are losing money and the public are disrupted. So we need a change of stance from the government immediately. So what are the key differences in this dispute from the one with Network Rail, where you did ballot members and yet you're not on this one? So what are the differences? Well, in Network Rail, they made an improved offer. It's not the same offer.

The drivers have only been offered 8% over these two years, and they haven't had a pay rise for four years. Our members have been offered 9% over those four years because we haven't had a pay deal for such a long time. But in this one, they are saying to us, we have to go into another round of negotiations after we declared the dispute over. So what the demand was two weeks ago was that we say that the dispute has been concluded when the issues have not been negotiated, whereas in Network Rail, the issues were settled. They moved forward with their modernising maintenance plan and they enhanced the offer in cash terms. So it's a superior offer to the one that's available to train operating companies. They put a travel facilities deal in it, and there were new contracts of employment for many of our members that have got the potential to improve their earnings over the rest of their career.

So it's a completely different offer for Network Rail, and it was a different picture. The Network Rail moves in a way that our members could accept, but the train operating companies have not been allowed to do that by the government. So if the train companies dropped the request to get rid of your strike mandate, would you put that to the ballot? Is the rest of the deal sound, essentially? Probably. Well, the devils know because the Network Rail deal was a better deal. It had more cash in the offer than this one. It's in the technicalities of the way the deal works. So what we need to do is get around the table and get the document written down in a way that is clear.

It was unclear in its first version, and that broke down because of the interpretation. So we'll be talking to the companies next week to see if they want to get around the table and fresh out a deal. If we get a deal that is clear in its meaning and we're allowed to keep our. or enabled to keep our mandate going so that we've got leverage at the negotiating table, perhaps we can move forward. But the devils are always in the detail of these documents, and we'll have to see what it says to see if we can move forward. But what's going on at the moment is the government is wasting everybody's time and money rather than allowing the companies to negotiate and get a reasonable prospect of the deal. Everybody's been putting a straight jacket, really, so that we can't move this dispute forward.

So hopefully we can do that in the next week or two. OK, well, Mick Lynch, we appreciate your time this morning. Thanks very much indeed.

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