Transport secretary calls strikes ‘a stunt’
Talking on Sky Information this morning, transport secretary Grant Shapps mentioned authorities is just not going to get entangled as it might “make issues worse”, and added that employers are those with the mandate and technical particulars to barter.
Shapps, whereas mentioning different junior physician, firefighter and postal employees disputes that have been resolved with out authorities involvement, mentioned:
This can be a stunt, which I’m afraid you’re falling for, by the unions and the Labour get together — the Labour get together who wont even condemn these strikes at this time, and the unions who solely final month have been saying they’d not negotiate with the federal government, and have instantly determined, operating out of issues to say, that they’ll instantly name on ministers to speak to them and stroll within the room with them straight. It wouldn’t resolve something in truth it might make issues worse and thats why i’m not within the room.
Earlier on this system Shapps mentioned it’s “time to get this strike settled” and referred to as on the unions to return again to the negotiating desk.
Helen Pidd
Assembling their picket line outdoors Manchester Piccadilly station at 6am on Tuesday, the hanging rail employees puzzled if they’d obtain a hostile response from these inconvenienced. However as an alternative of abuse, they acquired toots from passing buses and taxis, whereas cyclists rang their bells.
“Passengers who use our railways day in, time out assist us. They know that almost all of us should not on the inflated wages you see thrown about by rightwing commentators and newspapers,” mentioned Clayton Clive, RMT department secretary for Manchester. About 950 of his 1,500 members had downed instruments for the day, a turnout of 63%, he mentioned.
Contained in the usually chaotic station, calm reigned. The handful of passengers who had arrived with out getting the memo have been sanguine – even the couple who had been ready 4 and a half hours for a practice to Wolverhampton.
Owen Fones and his girlfriend had been on vacation in Gran Canaria; their airplane landed in the course of the evening and the couple discovered themselves stranded. They caught a taxi to Piccadilly and used the station wifi to atone for Love Island on their ipad. “I haven’t obtained a clue what the strike is all about however I believe it’s a load of garbage,” mentioned Fones.
A person blocked a bus in east London demanding the driving force let him on after commuters queued at Blackhorse Highway Station early this morning.
Anas Sarwar, Diane Abbott and Angela Rayner are the most recent Labour leaders to affix picket strains in solidarity with RMT union members, regardless of Keir Starmer’s workplace telling shadow cupboard members that to “present management” frontbenchers “shouldn’t be on picket strains”.
Labour deputy chief and MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, Angela Rayner, wrote on Twitter:
Staff have been left with no selection. Nobody takes strike motion frivolously. I’ll all the time defend their absolute proper to take action for equity at work. The PM must do his personal job. His Authorities brought on this. Now they need to remedy it.
Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Diane Abbott, wrote: “(However don’t inform Keir Starmer)” above {a photograph} of her with hanging employees.
And Scottish Labour chief Anas Sarwar, who sits within the Scottish Parliament wrote: “This can be a disaster completely of the Authorities’s making.”
Solidarity with these on the picket strains.
This can be a disaster completely of the Authorities’s making.
The employees don’t need strikes. The unions don’t need strikes. The general public don’t need strikes.
They demand higher. pic.twitter.com/PMZSfIyTwD
— Anas Sarwar (@AnasSarwar) June 21, 2022
Earlier, we wrote of different MPs expressing their solidarity on Twitter.
Earlier, I requested readers to get in contact to share their commuting and journey experiences because the rail strikes that obtained underneath manner this morning are the most important within the UK for greater than 30 years.
Charles Linehan wrote:
On a uncommon Brighton to London practice with my bike on board. Have 20 undergraduate college students to show. Staying In North London all week at my brother’s with an 18 mile spherical journey to South East London on my bike till Friday. Nobody else can train what I’m doing.
One other reader, Nick Wereszczynski, wrote:
I’m an NHS employee travelling throughout Southwark this morning. A journey that usually would take me 20 minutes by way of tube, took over an hour on two busses. And whereas half asleep, I stand proudly with everybody hanging at this time – whereas we may be mildly inconvenienced for a few days this week, I would like everybody to do not forget that the employees hanging at this time are doing so as a result of what they’re battling is a every day incidence that has spanned years. I solely want that NHS employees may do the identical.
Paul Rowlston wrote:
I’m fortunate sufficient to be a kind of individuals who commute downstairs to a house workplace. Nonetheless, On Sunday I can be making the spherical journey from North Yorkshire to London and again (10 hours, give or take) to convey my daughter residence for every week earlier than she begins a brand new job. Frankly, I’m more than pleased to do it and don’t have anything however assist for the hanging rail employees. Entitled and privileged millionaires and ‘skilled politicians’ (who’re in a position to declare yearly bills value greater than a minimal wage) actually do have to cease telling the toughest working and lowest paid folks within the nation that they’re those whose belt wants tightening. Strike, strike once more, maintain hanging – working folks shouldn’t be begging for scraps whereas the felony in Quantity 10 begs for brand new wallpaper for his grace and favour.
We wish to hear of your journey experiences, and what various preparations you will have made. Need to get in contact?
Electronic mail me at geneva.abdul@theguardian.com or discover me on Twitter @GenevaAbdul
What Tube strains are working?
The most recent journey updates from Transport for London (TfL) present eight underground strains are utterly suspended. These are: Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith & Metropolis, Jubilee, Metropolitan, Piccadilly, Victoria, and Waterloo & Metropolis.
TfL reveals good service for the DLR and trams. Nonetheless, a variety of strains are operating on restricted service and with extreme delays. These embrace:
- Central: Service working between White Metropolis and West Ruislip / Ealing Broadway, roughly each 20 minutes and between Liverpool Avenue and Epping / Hainault, roughly each 10 minutes. Service working between Woodford and Hainault (by way of Grange Hill) roughly each 20 minutes
- District: Service working between West Ham and Upminster roughly each quarter-hour.
- Elizabeth: A diminished service is working between Paddington and Studying / Heathrow Airport and between Liverpool Avenue and Shenfield.
- Overground: No service between Romford and Upminster. Extreme delays between Highbury & Islington and Clapham Junction / New Cross / Crystal Palace / West Croydon attributable to strike motion.
- Northern: Service working between East Finchley and Excessive Barnet / Mill Hill East and between Golders Inexperienced and Edgware, roughly each 8 minutes.
Right here’s how commuters and travellers are responding to rail strikes.
A healthcare assist employee in north London who was an hour and a half late for work amid the journey disruption has mentioned NHS employees like him “aren’t in a position to strike” like these from rail corporations, studies PA information.
David Raposo Buzon, 34, mentioned:
I really feel OK with folks doing strikes, however on the identical time I really feel offended after I suppose that NHS employees should not in a position to strike even when our situations at work are actually unhealthy.
Susan Millson, 69, from Clapham, southwest London, advised PA information the rail strikes are “outrageous” and “terrible” as she was compelled to cancel a her journey to East Grinstead to see her sister for the day.
Millson, arrived at Clapham junction station with the hope her practice to East Grinstead may be operating, however found the companies has been impacted by the strikes. Chatting with PA information about her disruption, she mentioned:
I simply suppose it’s outrageous that there is no such thing as a give and take between the unions and the Authorities. Nobody is giving any leeway in the meanwhile, it’s terrible, it’s simply terrible. It’s a pleasant day as effectively. Nobody can afford to strike in the meanwhile the best way the nation is, it’s terrible and now we’ve obtained this.
We wish to hear of your journey experiences, and what various preparations you will have made. Need to get in contact?
Electronic mail me at geneva.abdul@theguardian.com or discover me on Twitter @GenevaAbdul
Abstract
Good morning to these becoming a member of our stay protection of the practice strikes. Right here’s a abstract of what’s occurred thus far:
- Johnson warned commuters to be ready to ‘keep the course’. At a gathering of the cupboard, Johnson additionally mentioned reforms have been wanted on the railways, in any other case it might consequence within the “catastrophe” of declining rail use.
- RMT referred to as Johnson’s company employees plans ‘a gimmick’ in response to Boris Johnson’s plans to interrupt the economic motion by permitting companies to usher in company employees, introduced Monday. Unions have decried the transfer as unworkable, unsafe and doubtlessly breaking worldwide legislation.
- Labour MPs have joined picket strains in solidarity with RMT union members, regardless of Keir Starmer’s workplace telling shadow cupboard members that frontbenchers “shouldn’t be on picket strains”. MPs embrace Ian Lavery, Beth Winter, and Navendu Mishra, amongst others.
- Rail strikes are going to price the hospitality trade’s eating places, pubs and different companies, £500m in income. The CEO of UKHospitality mentioned the trade, already battered by the Coronavirus pandemic, “can’t face up to anymore of those extreme financial shocks.”
- The Nationwide Rail Enquires web site stopped working round 8am, disrupting passengers making an attempt to make use of the service to search out out what trains are operating in the course of the rail strike.
- Transport secretary Grant Shapps referred to as the strikes “a stunt”, and mentioned authorities is just not going to get entangled as it might “make issues worse”.
Comply with our politics weblog with my colleague Andrew Sparrow, for the most recent updates from Westminster and past as the most important strike on the railways since 1989 unfolds.
The top of Community Rail has denied that the federal government leaned on it to cap a pay enhance for its employees, because it failed to forestall the most important practice strikes in 30 years.
Makes an attempt to avert the strikes by means of talks failed on Monday night and the RMT accused the federal government of stopping a deal.
The union believes the federal government put strain on Community Rail to not exceed a pay enhance of three% due to the precedent this would possibly set and the danger of inflation.
Learn extra from my colleague Emily Dugan right here:
Johnson warns commuters to be ready to ‘keep the course’
At a gathering of the cupboard, Johnson mentioned reforms have been wanted on the railways, PA studies. Johnson added:
We’d like the union barons to sit down down with Community Rail and the practice corporations and get on with it. We’d like, I’m afraid, all people, and I say this to the nation as a complete, we have to prepare to remain the course. To remain the course, as a result of these reforms, these enhancements in the best way we run our railways are within the pursuits of the travelling public, they are going to assist to chop prices for farepayers up and down the nation.
With out the modernisation programme, the trade and firms would face additional monetary strain, Johnson mentioned, and must elevate the value of tickets additional consequently, in response to PA. That will consequence within the “catastrophe” of declining rail use.
Right here’s how commuters and travellers are responding to rail strikes.
Boarding a substitute bus service outdoors Birmingham New Avenue, one man advised PA information “half of what I mentioned wouldn’t be match to print in a newspaper”. One other man passing a close-by picket line mentioned to hanging employees: “Effectively executed, everybody. Solidarity. Effectively executed.”
Electrical engineer Harry Charles advised PA information his regular 10-minute journey to work by practice to London Bridge took 90 minutes.
The 30-year-old, from Lewisham mentioned: “Clearly I needed to get up early and left my home at 6am. I’m with the workers who’re hanging as a result of their cash is just not going up and the price of every part is rising.”
Rene Mance, 47, mentioned the journey chaos had disrupted her journey to Glastonbury pageant the place she was beginning a brand new job, PA information studies.
“I can’t fake it hasn’t been worrying. It has. I didn’t actually sleep very effectively as a result of I used to be fearful about it,” she mentioned. Travelling with heavy baggage she felt would trigger problem on the bus, Mance mentioned she was compelled to pay nearly £40 for a cab to the station.
Chatting with PA information at Paddington station, she mentioned:
For many individuals, say a mom with children or somebody disabled, it’s absolute chaos. My scenario no matter it’s, I might have discovered a manner, however you understand, some persons are not like me. They don’t have cash to get within the cab, and it was a complete luxurious for me, nevertheless it labored.
