“The drivers have not had a pay increase for five years and first balloted for strike action in June 2022.
Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan said: “Since then train drivers have voted, again and again, to take action to get a pay rise.
“It is now a year since we sat in a room with the train companies – and a year since we rejected the risible offer they made which they admitted, privately, was designed to be rejected.”
Strikes will take place on Tuesday May 7 and Thursday May 9. An overtime ban runs from May 6-11.
The drivers have held 14 days of strike action since the dispute began.
The government will use taxpayers’ money to compensate operators for lost profits.”
I think they would do that if they could - my understanding is that kind of action is illegal. This is ultimately the result of legislating against all other forms of protest.
The train guards are the ones who check the tickets, do the announcements etc. the drivers went on strike a few years ago (and maybe partially now too?) to stop them being fired. They can’t run trains without them.
If the law is anything like what we have in France, the inspectors are indeed allowed to strike. Which means, not showing up to work. If they are not striking they have to do their job.
And refusing to inspect tickets in this situation would be grounds for termination for “serious misconduct”, because it’s an explicit breach of their contract, and also a crime if the company says it has cost them more than 1000€ (not sure about the sum but you get the idea) because it would be considered as defrauding the company
Not running the trains should hurt the company’s reputation though. But the problem is that due to decades of propaganda, the companies have successfully managed to convince the public that train unions go on strike for frivolous reasons, or even just to get some time off. At least that’s the issue here in France.
Also idk about UK law but in France, the employees refusing to check tickets would be committing a crime, and we already have better laws regarding rights to strike than most of Europe…
I love trains, but not having train services every other weekend pisses me off.
“Aslef, the train drivers’ union, said it is seeking better pay for its members and claimed drivers are being asked to sacrifice working conditions in exchange for a wage increase.” Say that to a tube driver, he’ll land a really good punch on your face.
They got better pay than a tube driver, and a much more pleasant working environment (especially tne part where the background noise is less than 80dB), I don’t really see what’s their argument.
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