Rail unions

Between 18 and 20 August more than 50,000 transport workers will strike. RMT members in Network Rail and the Train Operating Companies are out on 18 and 20 August. RMT members on London Underground and London Overground will strike on 19 August alongside 1,600 Unite bus workers at London United, who continue their strike action on 20 August. London Overground workers are striking for a decent pay increase. The bus workers have rejected a deal from RATP, the French company that owns London United of 3.6% pay increase for 2022 and 4.2% for 2023, clearly well below current and projected inflation...

The new issue of Off The Rails calls for action to stop the Tories' renewed attack on the right to strike. It reports on rail workers' ongoing strikes, calling for co-ordination between the different unions involved. And it reports on the crisis on Avanti West Coast, Scotrail workers' rejection of the latest company offer, and the extension of RMT cleaners' strikes. Click the file name below to open and download it. Please print it and distribute it to railworkers in your area.

The annual general meeting of the Rail, Maritime, and Transport workers' union (RMT), which was held in Birmingham from 3-7 July, saw delegates debate strategy and perspectives for the union's national dispute with Network Rail and mainline train operating companies. An emergency motion from RMT East Midlands Central resolving to name further strikes as soon as possible, citing the beginning of the next pay period for many rail workers on 17 July, was heavily defeated. This may suggest some rank-and-file delegates are, for now, unwilling to mount too vigorous a challenge to national officers'...

The July 2022 Annual General Meeting of UK rail and transport union RMT - currently engaged in national strike action to defend wages, jobs and conditions on the railways - passed the following in solidarity with rail workers in Belarus, jailed for taking action in solidarity with Ukraine. Free the Belarus Railway 11 This union notes that: 1. on 19 April 2022, more than twenty leaders and activists of the Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BKDP) were detained by State Security. At least ten are still in custody, including the BKDP President and International Trade Union...

The new issue of 'Off The Rails' is out now. Written by rail workers from around the country, it celebrates last week's strike action and raises some suggestions for an effective way forward. Please read it, download it, print it, and give it out at railway workplaces.

Mick Lynch, general secretary of the RMT rail union, on Peston on ITV, responded to Tory MP Robert Jenrick about how to increase demand for the railways: “The worst way you could do it is by insisting the fares go up by RPI ripping off the commuters, but you won’t give the workers RPI… Last year, profits were made by the train operators — £500m out of that subsidy you gave went to those companies. First Group and Go Ahead, whom we’re negotiating with, are both subject to takeovers from private equity companies. “They’re going to be worth billions because they know you’re going to keep...

Dozens of Labour MPs — fifty according to The Times — attended RMT picket lines between 21 and 25 June. The very right-wing leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Anas Sarwar, also joined a picket line. Westminster Labour right-winger Jon Cruddas has written that Labour must support the rail workers. “There is no way of hiding from this, no tactical dodge. Actually, it is why the party was created in the first place”. The power of the rail workers’ action has clearly inspired chunks of the Parliamentary Labour Party, as it has inspired hundreds of thousands of trade union activists and...