More London rail disruption on horizon as ASLEF to stage fresh overtime ban
Train drivers will stage a fresh overtime ban in August, the ASLEF Union has announced, continuing a long running dispute and causing disruption for many London hubs.
ASLEF workers will refuse to work overtime from Monday 7 to Saturday 12 August, in action that the union said will “seriously disrupt services,” as “none of the train companies employ enough drivers to deliver the services they have promised passengers and the government they will run.”
Services included in the overtime ban are routes which serve major London hubs, including the Thameslink, Great Western, Avanti West Coast and the Gatwick Express.
A recent survey showed that despite rail disruption in recent months, London workers are still making the effort to get back to the office, and are bucking the wider UK trend of increasingly working from home.
Mick Whelan, ASLEF’s general secretary, hit out at a breakdown in negotiations with government, who he said have refused to “sit down and talk to us and have not made a fair and sensible pay offer to train drivers who have not had one for four years – since 2019 – while prices have soared in that time by more than 12 per cent.”
April negotiations saw the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) – who represent train operators – offer a 4 per pay rise, which ASLEF refused.
Whelan said today: “We have not heard a word from the employers since then – we haven’t had a meeting, or a phone call, a text message, nor an email – for the three months, and we haven’t sat down with the government since Friday 6 January.”
The announcement comes amid this weeks’ disruption, with RMT members launching rolling strike action which began yesterday, and will continue through to 29 July.
However, the action was called off after Union negotiators reached a last minute pay deal with Transport for London (TFL) and Mayor Sadiq Khan who they said had made “significant concessions.”
This week, the boss of Brewdog said the impact strikes were having were “killing” UK business and cost the firm upwards of £3.5m.
Train operators affected include Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railways, Cross Country, East Midlands Railway, Greater Anglia, Great Western Railway, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, Island Line, LNER, Northern Trains, Southeastern, Southern and Gatwick Express, South Western Railway main line, TransPennine Express and West Midlands trains.