Union boss says crippling rail strikes to go ahead as no one is ‘coming to the table’
Crippling rail strikes are set to go ahead in just two weeks as train company bosses are not “coming to the table”, according to the head of the UK train drivers’ union.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (Aslef) union, said “when train drivers don’t come to work, trains don’t run, so there won’t be services in those areas”.
Aslef’s members who work for Arriva Rail London, Chiltern Railways, Greater Anglia, Great Western, Hull Trains, LNER, Southeastern and West Midlands Trains will walk off the job on 30 July in what is being described as the first national walkout of drivers since 1995.
It comes amid a series of other strikes also being called by the UK’s two other major rail unions, which will cause commuter chaos over the next month.
“That saddens us – we’d much rather be talking to find a way out of this but unfortunately no-one’s coming to the table,” Whelan told Sky News.
The union is calling for a pay rise for its drivers that matches the UK’s 40-year-high inflation rate of 9 per cent.
Whelan said that drivers deserved a pay rise in the face of cost of living pressures and the fact that wages were stagnant during Covid-19.
When asked if the union was asking for an inflation-linked pay increase, Whelan said: “We’d like that, standing still isn’t greed. Standing still is standing still. We’re saying this year everybody deserves a pay rise.”