UK train companies offer RMT union higher pay in drive to end strikes

Train companies have offered the UK’s biggest transport union a higher pay deal and dropped the most contentious part of their modernisation programme as hopes rise of a deal to end months of damaging strikes.

The RMT on Thursday said it would “consider the detail” of a new 9 per cent, two-year pay and reform offer from industry body the Rail Delivery Group, with larger increases for lower-paid staff, following increasingly constructive talks with train operators.

Meanwhile, thousands of nurses across England on Thursday began a second day of industrial action as NHS data revealed near-record numbers of medically fit patients unable to leave hospital.

In the push for a deal with the RMT, train companies agreed to drop a demand for a nationwide move towards drivers, rather than guards, operating carriage doors, long a red line for the union.

But the proposal still sets out major changes to the UK’s railways, including a contractual commitment for staff to work on Sundays, and the likely mass closure of ticket offices.

The rail industry is increasingly optimistic of securing a deal with the RMT, which rejected an 8 per cent, two-year pay offer in late 2022.

The train companies have worked jointly on the new offer with union bosses over the past week in the most collaborative discussions since the dispute began in the summer of last year, according to people close to the talks.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said the union’s executive committee would consider the offer but that it had “made no decisions”.

The RDG said it had put forward its “best and final offer”, and the Department for Transport encouraged the RMT to accept the “fair and reasonable” proposal.

Even if a deal is agreed, the industry will still have to contend with a tangle of other disputes, including between the RDG and train drivers, and infrastructure owner Network Rail and the RMT.

The smaller TSSA union on Thursday announced plans to ballot workers for strikes at 12 train companies in its own dispute with the RDG.

Separately, the Royal College of Nursing, which has called walkouts for February 6 and 7, urged the government to reopen negotiations on last year’s pay talks.

Earlier this month, the union signalled that it would be willing to accept a 10 per cent pay rise, a shift from its initial call for 19 per cent.

Pat Cullen, RCN general secretary, on Thursday called on prime minister Rishi Sunak to “grab the olive branch” and compromise.

Officials close to health secretary Steve Barclay stressed that ministers were keen to engage in “constructive dialogue” with unions, focusing on the upcoming 2023-24 pay deal.

Meanwhile, figures from NHS England showed that, in the week to January 15, 14,036 hospital beds were on average occupied each day by people medically fit to be discharged. That is the second-highest figure ever recorded by the health service.

In the same week, roughly 23 per cent of patients who arrived at hospitals by ambulance waited more than 30 minutes, compared with 44 per cent in the seven days to January 1.

The GMB union said there were far fewer long handover delays on days when its members in ambulance trusts were striking than on non-strike days. Some 5.6 per cent of arrivals were delayed for more than an hour on January 11, compared with 25.3 per cent a week earlier.

It said that was evidence of ministers “scaremongering” NHS staff by arguing that a new bill to mandate minimum service levels during walkouts was necessary.

Saffron Cordery, interim head of NHS Providers, which represents health organisations, warned that urgent and emergency care services remained “under alarming levels of stress”.

She added that the government “must sit down urgently with the unions to talk about pay for this financial year”.