Watchdogs say they received 750,000 responses to consultation, 99% of which were objections
Plans to close railway station ticket offices in England have been scrapped, in a government U-turn.
The transport secretary, Mark Harper, said the “government had asked train operators to withdraw their proposals”.
Continue reading...Rail workers’ union says 20,000 members from 14 firms will strike on 26 August and 2 September
Members of the biggest rail workers’ union are to stage fresh strikes in a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport workers’ union (RMT) said 20,000 of its members from 14 train operators would walk out on 26 August and 2 September.
Continue reading...Mick Lynch downplays prospects of a resolution to dispute over pay, jobs and conditions
The RMT leader, Mick Lynch, has claimed he has not met a government minister since January as he downplayed prospects of a resolution to the long-running dispute over pay, jobs and conditions.
The next strike by members of the of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union takes place on Thursday, with strikes also scheduled for Saturday and 29 July.
Continue reading...‘Rolling action’ by RMT members between 23 and 28 July likely to cause widespread disruption across capital
London Underground staff will take industrial action over a week at the end of July, spelling widespread transport disruption in the capital.
Members of the RMT union will take “rolling action” between Sunday 23 July and Friday 28 July. The RMT said there would be no strike on Monday 24, with staff in different sections and grades halting work on different shifts on each of the other days.
Continue reading...After a year of walkouts and failed talks, the unions, ministers and operators are as far apart as ever
Almost a year since the first national rail strike was called, another series of stoppages loom. Passengers who have been spared the usual round of disruptive bank holiday engineering works this weekend won’t be so lucky in the second half of the half-term break. Strikes by drivers and crew will more or less wipe out services on Wednesday and Saturday, shred schedules on Friday, and add a bit of scattergun disruption in between.
This time in 2022, the mere prospect of the biggest rail strike in decades was causing consternation. Now, though, the latest guaranteed upheaval has not even produced a round of talks between unions and industry – let alone ministers – to try to head off the disruption.
Continue reading...Latest action on 2 June comes between two days of strikes by Aslef and will bring further disruption to football final
The RMT has announced another rail strike on Friday 2 June, the day before the men’s FA Cup final, warning that the government “cannot wish the dispute away”.
About 20,000 RMT members working for the 14 major rail companies in England will strike for 24 hours in the long-running dispute over pay and conditions.
Continue reading...Nurses union head clashes with Steve Barclay over plans to protect patients and RMT rows with Mark Harper about striking on eve of Eurovision final
The Royal College of Nursing has clashed with the government over whether sufficient exemptions have been made to protect patient safety during the nurses’ strike in England that started on Sunday evening.
The clash came as a row erupted between the leader of the train drivers’ union and the transport secretary, who had criticised a planned strike on the eve of the Eurovision song contest final for its impact on Ukraine.
Continue reading...This live blog has now closed, you can read more on this story here
Nurses in England are preparing to go on strike until Christmas after members of the country’s biggest nursing union voted against the government’s pay deal, the Guardian has learned.
The Royal College of Nursing will announce that members have rejected the government’s offer and will at the same time announce a new ballot for more aggressive strikes likely to last for the next six months.
The vote has closed and the figures are being verified. There is no result until that point. We will make an announcement later today and tell our members first.
Members of the GMB union at the company’s Coventry fulfilment centre will walk out on Sunday for three days.
Further strikes are planned from April 21 to 23.
Continue reading...Strikes to begin on 16 March after union rejects offers from train operators and Network Rail
The RMT union has announced further national strikes and wider action on the railways after rejecting offers from both train operators and Network Rail last week.
The union’s 40,000 members across Network Rail and 14 train operators will strike on 16 March. Train staff will walk out for three further days, on 18 and 30 March and 1 April.
Continue reading...Companies have made a ‘final offer’ to union including pay rise of 9% over two years
The RMT has received a fresh offer from train operators, the union said, raising hopes of a breakthrough in the long-running pay dispute.
Talks have been ongoing in London this week with the RMT and the Rail Delivery Group (RDG), representing train firms, as well as separately with Network Rail.
Continue reading...Industrial action over pay and working conditions has caused almost four weeks of disruption
The last day in the latest stretch of railway strikes has begun, ending a run of almost four weeks of continuous disruption caused by industrial action over pay and working conditions.
Only about one in five trains across Great Britain will run on Saturday as a 48-hour walkout by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union concludes, with no early morning or evening services and a pared-back schedule on main intercity and urban lines.
Continue reading...PM offers no hint he will compromise on pay offers as former cabinet minister says nurses key to dealing with NHS pressures
The journalist interviewing Rishi Sunak this morning did not press Sunak on excess deaths because he needed to ask some questions about Prince Harry’s memoir. But Sunak would not go near the topic.
Asked how he felt seeing the royal family “torn apart” by these claims and revelations, Sunak replied:
As you would expect, it is not appropriate for me to comment on matters to do with the royal family.
I wouldn’t comment on matters to do with the royal family. I would just say I am enormously grateful to our armed forces for the incredible job they do in keeping us all safe. We’re all very fortunate for their service.
Continue reading...Passengers advised to travel only if necessary on Wednesday, although No 10 and Network Rail optimistic about reaching deal
• UK strike calendar: service stoppages in January
More disruption awaits commuters returning to work after the Christmas break on Wednesday, the second of five consecutive days of rail strikes.
Once again, much of Britain’s rail network will not be operating, with only about a fifth of trains expected to run, leaving only a skeleton service for commuters on some urban and intercity lines.
Continue reading...RMT staging two 48-hour strikes from Tuesday and Friday and Aslef has called strike for Thursday
Rail passengers will face fresh travel disruption this week because of strikes by tens of thousands of workers in bitter disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) at Network Rail and 14 train operators will stage two 48-hour strikes from Tuesday and Friday, while drivers in the Aslef union will strike on Thursday.
Continue reading...Delays and cancellations linked to 20 years of privatisation, rising costs and labour shortages worsened by pandemic, say experts
Rail passengers have been delayed or disrupted on more than half of all train services departing from 15 of Great Britain’s busiest stations in the last year, Guardian analysis shows, exposing what has been described as a “broken” railway system that cannot easily be fixed.
Experts said the figures – which show rail services in the north and Midlands as the hardest hit – demonstrated the impact of two decades of privatisation, which had increased costs and public subsidies, combined with labour shortages exacerbated by the pandemic.
Continue reading...Railways closed because of RMT strike while 1,000 Border Force staff in PCS union continue action
Here is a reminder of the upcoming strikes which have been announced by up until January.
Shoppers hoping for a Boxing Day bargain could face traffic jams as rail strikes bring train services to a halt, with the AA saying it expects 15.2m cars on UK roads on Boxing Day, with shoppers and football fans among those likely to travel.
Continue reading...No services on railways for second consecutive day as RMT union members strike over pay
Thousands of people face Boxing Day travel chaos across Britain as a rail strike means no services will be running.
Many have been forced to cancel or make alternative plans as the industrial action continues.
Continue reading...Sympathy and irritation from public as thousands of RMT union members at Network Rail prepare to strike
Rail passengers were facing delays as they rushed to get the last trains before Christmas Eve services came to a halt, while Britain’s roads were braced for extra traffic as a result of the strikes on the railways.
People embarking on festive getaways or heading home for the holidays gathered on the concourses of major stations including London Euston and Birmingham New Street.
Continue reading...Prime minister makes statement in Commons, saying he wants to abolish backlog of unprocessed asylum claims by end of next year
The Conservative MP Adam Afriyie has been made bankrupt after a judge in a specialist court heard how he owed around £1.7m, PA Media reports. A bankruptcy order was made against Afriyie, who represents Windsor, at an online hearing in the insolvency and companies court today by judge Nicholas Briggs.
This story, by my colleagues Heather Stewart and Rowena Mason last year, explains the background to this case.
We completed our enquiry into the impact of the ending of freedom of movement on the adult social care sector in April and submitted the report to government and parliament. We recommended that care workers continue to be eligible to apply for a health and care worker visa and made some additional recommendations for changes to the immigration system to ease the burden on social care employers and migrants.
However, our main recommendation was that a minimum rate of pay should be established for care workers at a premium to the statutory minimum wage where care is being provided with public funds. We suggested that this should initially be set at £1 per hour above the national living wage but expected a more substantial premium to be needed to properly address the crisis in social care recruitment and retention.
Continue reading...Royal College of Nursing says Steve Barclay refused to discuss pay at meeting on Monday; Welsh nurses to strike after last-minute talks fail. This blog is now closed
Pat Cullen, the Royal College of Nursing’s general secretary, told ITV this morning that there was no point talking to Steve Barclay, the health secretary, if he was not prepared to discuss pay. She said
What I’m saying … to the health secretary this morning, is if you don’t want to speak to me directly about nurses’ pay, we have engaged with the conciliation service Acas, they can do that through Acas, but our door is absolutely wide open and it appears at the minute that theirs is totally shut …
Fundamentally, I need to get to a table and talk to them about pay. This isn’t just me, it’s the 320,000 nurses that voted for strike action … They voted through an independent ballot that we carried out and surely to goodness you couldn’t look at one of those people this morning in the eye and say: ‘You’re not worth an extra brown penny’. In my mind they absolutely are.
I think it’s a very challenging international picture. About a third of the world’s economies are predicted to be in recession, either this year or next.
We’re no different in this country and truthfully, it is likely to get worse before it gets better, which makes it even more difficult when we have big public sector strikes going on at the moment.
Continue reading...