Rail workers walked out again – train drivers in Aslef on 12 May, and rail workers employed by the train operating companies in RMT on 13 May.
The government and the bosses “put forward an insulting offer to Aslef members and the executive rejected it, rightly so. That’s why we’re back here today on the picket line today, with further days planned for 31 May and 3 June”, as Mark Sarson, Aslef company council representative put it on the picket line outside Leicester rail station.
Socialist Party members visited picket lines on both days. Tom Porter Brown reports that support for striking railway workers at Birmingham New Street remained strong, with one office worker stopping to tell pickets how his commute today had taken three hours – and he still backed the train drivers!
“We’ve been negotiating nationally with representatives of the train companies since February. But even though we’ve had no pay increases since 2019 their pay offer of just 4%, with strings attached on our terms and conditions, is an insult and not acceptable”, a picket told Alex Thraves in Swansea.
One Aslef member told Melanie Dent in Reading that, in their opinion, if the TUC had called a general strike after the Truss-Kwarteng experiment, then a general election would have been called the next day.
