United Kingdom: on the eve of a historic rail strike
Passengers board a train bound for the west of England, ahead of a planned nationwide strike by railway workers, at Paddington station in London, Britain June 20, 2022. REUTERS - TOBY MELVILLE
Text by: RFI Follow
1 min
British trains will not run, or almost, this Tuesday, June 21.
A massive strike which is also announced for Thursday and Saturday.
This is the biggest mobilization in the sector for 30 years, only one train out of 5 should circulate.
Employees are demanding better conditions.
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With our correspondent in London
,
Emeline Vin
Some 50,000 railway employees are expected to walk off on Tuesday.
In full end of year exams among others.
Mick Lynch heads the Rail, Sea and Transport union.
He explains the reasons for the social movement: "
We don't want to disrupt people's lives, but we risk thousands of redundancies, and we have not received any guarantees that the departures will be voluntary... The sector tells us that all the counters in the country will close, that the weekly working time will drop from 35 to 40 hours
”.
The representatives are also demanding salary increases in line with inflation... This is too much, for Peter Hendy who heads Network Rail, the owner of the country's railway network:
“
Railway personnel have always had good salary conditions.
And we believe we can run the trains more efficiently, with fewer employees.
That does not mean that we are going to throw our employees out: rail is one of the sectors where it is easiest to have bridges
”.
The government, which sets salary ceilings, refuses to get involved in negotiations between railway companies, private companies and unions... But denounces the mobilization.
Teachers, hospital workers and postal workers could also strike in the coming weeks and give the government a “summer of anger”
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