Don't strike yourselves out of a job, Shapps warns rail workers ahead of walkout

16 June 2022, 14:57 | Updated: 17 June 2022, 06:47

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has warned unionised rail workers they risk 'striking yourselves out of a job' ahead of mass industrial action planned for next week.

Staff with the Rail, Maritime and Transport [RMT] union will bring much of Britain's rail network grinding to a halt next week over a dispute about pay, job cuts and conditions.

The strikes have been called the biggest for three decades and will leave passengers' summer plans in tatters if they cannot find alternative routes to festivals and sporting events next week.

Mr Shapps, the transport secretary, spoke directly to workers in a speech on Thursday, saying that causing more pain for commuters could lead to even less demand for train travel and that he worried for them.

He said: "For millions of passengers, rail is now a choice, not a necessity. Anything that stops people choosing rail, anything that drives away even more passengers than we've already lost has to be bad news for jobs and services.

"So today, I appeal directly to rail workers, who I think are less militant than their union leaders.

"Don't risk striking your industry out of a future. Don't risk striking yourselves out of a job. Don't pitch yourselves against the public."

The RMT strikes will take place on June 21, 23 and 25, but a special timetable will be in place from June 20 to June 26.

That puts it on a collision course with Glastonbury and the England v New Zealand test in Leeds.

Footfall crashed during the pandemic, leading the Government to pour £16bn into the railways to keep it running.

Read more: Everything you need to know about next week's rail strikes

But it has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels thanks to increased working from home, with the RMT saying Network Rail is lining up 2,500 cuts in rail maintenance job cuts.

Network Rail said there would be no compulsory redundancies and is looking for its staff to "multitask".

Mr Shapps said he the railway is in a "fight" against remote working and competing modes of public transport.

"We're going to endanger the jobs of thousands of rail workers," he said.

"The last thing the railway should be doing right now.

"It's alienating its passengers and the freight customers with long and damaging strikes."

He added: "Don't jeopardise the railways, and therefore by definition, the jobs that come from the railways."

The Government is hoping to enable the use of agency workers to fill roles held by people who strike, and said there are a "range of options" to respond to union disruption.

"If the strike drags on ... then transferrable skills, sometimes called agency working, will be something which will become available as well in this particular dispute," he warned.

Read more: New map shows rail strikes set to cripple network - which lines will be affected?

Season ticket holders will be in line for full compensation on strike days.

He said: "So let me close by assuring the unions, we will not be diverted from rail reform, from building a more agile and flexible workforce and from putting rail passengers first.

"Just as we cannot modernise the railway with obsolete technology, we cannot do it by clinging on to obsolete working practices from the past either. We have a rare opportunity here, to fix the issues that have long plagued the railway.

"But with strikes, all we're going to do is lose even more passengers, lose even more revenue, make further investment in the railway uneconomical and potentially lose thousands of railway jobs."