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Why are the railway workers on strike this month and can I get my train ticket refunded? Business

Tens of thousands of railway and tube workers are expected to leave the city later this month in what has been described as the “biggest outbreak of industrial action in the UK since 1989”.

Union bosses are threatening to ‘shut down the system’, with major disruptions expected to rail services and the London Underground, affecting events such as the Glastonbury Festival and the British Athletics Championships.

When do strikes take place?

The walkout is set to start on June 21 with up to 50,000 London Rail and Underground workers set to strike and Network Rail services set to be affected.

As many as 40,000 rail service workers will then go on strike again on June 23 and 25, according to rail union RMT.

However, union bosses said the action was to affect train services “throughout the week the three days of action have been called”. Indeed, trains may not be in the correct stations after walkouts.

Which rail operators will be affected?

Only a fifth of mainline rail services are expected to operate during the three-day strike period. The disrupted train services are:

  • Chiltern Railways
  • Cross country trains
  • Greater England
  • LNER
  • East Midlands Railway
  • c2c
  • Northern Trains
  • South East
  • South West Railway
  • Great Western Railway
  • Trans Pennine Express
  • Avanti west coast
  • West Midlands Trains

What are the workers striking on?

Railway workers voted to strike after a row with Network Rail over pay freezes and proposed job cuts. RMT says as many as 2,500 jobs are at risk and workers have been subjected to years of wage freezes.

RMT general secretary Mike Lynch said of the action: ‘We have a cost of living crisis, and it is unacceptable for railway workers to lose their jobs or face another year of wage freezes. .”

National Rail responded by saying the union ‘must recognize that we are a public body and that any wage increase must be affordable to taxpayers’.

Chief executive Andrew Haines said: “We cannot expect to take more than our fair share of public funds, and so we need to modernize our industry to put it on a solid financial footing for the future. The failure of modernization will only lead to industry decline and more job losses in the long run.”

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Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-06-07 22:02:14

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