Shapps accuses union of ‘punishing’ public with crippling rail strikes

Transportation Secretary Grant Shapps has accused the nation’s largest rail union of “punishing” millions of innocent people after confirming he will go ahead with a series of crippling strikes.

Shapps said the traveling public faced a week of “misery” because the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union had refused repeated calls to suspend its action which was due to start on Tuesday.

But Labor, in turn, accused Transport Secretary and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of deliberately “pouring oil on the fire” because they wanted the country to “stop” in order to stoke political divisions.

On Saturday, the RMT confirmed that strikes at Network Rail and 13 train operators will continue on Tuesday, Thursday and next Saturday, and on the London Underground on Tuesday.

Secretary-General Mick Lynch said: “Despite the best efforts of our negotiators, no viable settlements have been created for the disputes.”

Shapps said patients would be forced to cancel hospital appointments, workers would lose wages because they couldn’t get to work, and students taking exams would face the added distraction of having to change their travel plans due to the action.

“Sadly, they have ignored these requests time and time again, and now we are on the cusp of a major disruption that will cause misery for people across the country,” he said.

“By taking this action, the RMT is punishing millions of innocent people, instead of calmly discussing the sensible and necessary reforms we must make to protect our rail network.”

However, in a speech to the Labor Local Government Association conference in Warwick on Sunday, Sir Keir Starmer will claim that Johnson and Shapps want the strikes to continue for their own political ends.

“They want the country to stop so they can feed off the division. Instead of spending their time this week around the negotiating table, they are crafting attack ads,” she will say.

“Instead of adult conversations to defuse the situation, they are pouring gasoline on the fire. Instead of uniting the people for the national interest, they are fueling the division for their political interest.”

The action of tens of thousands of rail workers, in a dispute over job losses and union demands for a wage increase to keep pace with inflation, will paralyze services for most of the week.

Lynch said thousands of jobs were being eliminated on rail networks and workers were facing below-inflation wage increases.

“It must be reiterated that the source of these disputes is the Tory government’s decision to cut £4bn of funding from our transport systems: £2bn from national rail and £2bn from Transport for London,” he said.

“Faced with this massive attack on our people, the RMT cannot be passive.”

Tim Shoveller, Network Rail’s chief negotiator, was surprised that RMT scrapped the talks “before we were done” with more discussions scheduled for Sunday.

“I’m serious about trying to find a solution and come to a compromise that gives our people a decent pay raise, but it has to be affordable for taxpayers and rate payers,” he said.

“Until now, our offers have been rejected and the union demands are far from affordable. We will continue to talk and try to find a way to prevent this unnecessary and damaging attack.”