TSSA members on the fourteen TOCs involved in the national dispute have accepted their leadership's recommendation and voted to accept real-terms pay cuts and attacks on working conditions. The deal - 5% or £1750 this year, 4% next year - is way below inflation.
TSSA's justification of this capitulation laughingly claims that it "has been at the forefront of the strikes and industrial action on the railways since the summer of 2022" and claims the credit for securing "an improved deal on pay". But a pay deal that is a bit less less than inflation is still less than inflation, so is still a real-terms pay cut.
And even this paltry 'rise' comes with more strings than an orchestra. It allows the companies to press ahead with their attacks on pay and conditions, with a feeble note that TSSA still opposes ticket office closures.
Unsurprisingly, manager members were more keen on the deal than non-manager members, with 80% and 60% respectively voting to accept. With a turnout of just 57%, the votes would not have met the thresholds that the law requires for industrial action ballots, but those thresholds only apply to fighting the employers not to giving in to them! The laws are not 'democratic' as the government likes to claim - they are anti-union.
The silver lining to the cloud of TSSA's surrender is that TSSA represents very little in the railway workforce, either in numbers or in industrial strength. Activists in other unions never really expect them to stay the course, but hopefully some of their members will continue with this fight, either by joining RMT or by respecting picket lines - or both!