Train drivers will begin a new wave of strikes on 1 February after a pay offer of 8% over two years from the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) was rejected by Aslef members.
Drivers from 15 rail operators will strike on Wednesday 1 and Friday 3 February, continuing a long-running dispute over pay and conditions that has seen Aslef members walk out for six days over the past year.
National Rail negotiators from the RDG offered a backdated 4% pay rise, as well as 4% in the coming years, also promising no forced redundancies until March 2024.
“The proposal is not and could not ever be acceptable,” according to Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan.
“Not only is the offer a real-terms pay cut, with inflation running north of 10%, but it came with so many conditions attached that it was clearly unacceptable,” he added, pointing to terms which would have seen the union agree to a Sunday commitment protocol.
Reforms aiming to reduce training times for new drivers, allowing managers to drive trains on strike days and seeing staff moved between depots had also been proposed by the RDG.
An RDG spokesperson outlined that taxpayers are paying “up to an extra £175 million a month to make up the shortfall in revenue post-covid,” in response to Aslef turning down the offer.
The deal would have lifted average driver salaries from £60,000 to £65,000, while “bringing in long overdue, common-sense reforms that would mean more reliable services for passengers,” the RDG said.
Friday saw hopes raised that the RDG may be closing in on a strike-ending deal with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT), following comments from both sides that progress was being made.
According to the Telegraph, a pay offer of a 9% pay rise split across two years has been made by the RDG, while an insistence that train guards are axed might be dropped.
Some 467,000 days were lost to strike action last November, according to the Office for National Statistics, with 1.6mln being lost between June and that same month - the highest figure in a single year since 1990.