Pay offer made to Aslef train drivers as rail strike disruption continues on Saturday
Train operating companies have offered the drivers’ union a two-year deal in a bid to resolve the bitter pay dispute – as strikes across the rail network continue on Saturday.
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) said it was offering a “landmark outline proposal” in exchange for a pay increase of 4% for 2022 and 4% for this year.
It also includes a commitment to no compulsory redundancies until at least 31 March 2024.
Steve Montgomery, chairman of the RDG, said: “This is a fair and affordable offer in challenging times, providing a significant uplift in salary for train drivers while bringing in common-sense and long-overdue reforms that would drive up reliability for passengers and allow the railway to adapt to changed travel patterns.”
Drivers’ union Aslef said it had not seen the offer.
It comes as RMT union members at Network Rail and 14 train companies are continuing with a 48-hour strike which is set to cripple services across the country again on Saturday.
Only around one in five trains will run, with services starting later and finishing earlier.
The RMT has rejected a pay offer from train companies of 4% last year and 4% this year, saying a “host of unacceptable changes” were included such as the widespread expansion of driver-only operation on train services.
It argued that while rail workers have had their pay frozen between March 2020 and September 2022, official data showed that the private train operators made £310m in taxpayer-funded profits during the same period.
Southeastern train drivers outside Ramsgate station in Kent during a strike by drivers from the Aslef union
By September this year, that figure will be in excess of £400m, all of which can be turned into shareholder dividends, said the union.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: “While the secretary of state and the Rail Delivery Group spin about the need for reform to fund pay rises, the truth is that the money was always there but it’s being salted away by a gang of profiteers and their mates in the government.
“It’s outrageous that the interests of workers, passengers and the taxpaying public are all sacrificed to the greed of a handful of private transport companies who are being guaranteed profits when they can’t run a railway even when we’re not on strike.”
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The latest strikes are part of a long-running pay dispute between rail staff and the train operating companies, that has caused widespread disruption to services across the UK.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “Passengers have rightly had enough of rail strikes and want the disruption to end.
“Unions should step back from this strike action so we can start 2023 by ending this damaging dispute.”
The crash involving a cargo ship and oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast is bad news for the sea, fish and air in the area. What we don’t know yet is quite how bad it will be.
That depends on a few things – but the speed of the collision, clouds of filthy black smoke from the fires and the leaked fuel are certainly worrying.
Firstly, it matters what was on board those two massive vessels.
Follow live: Jet fuel spilling into sea after tanker collision
Analytics firm Vortexa estimates the 183m-long tanker was carrying about 130,000 barrels of jet fuel (kerosene), which is now leaking into the sea.
Jet fuel is not as sticky or viscous as heavier types of oil, thankfully, so it’s less likely to clog the feathers and fur of birds and seals. It can also be broken down by natural bacteria.
But it can still poison fish and kill animals and plants on the shoreline if it makes its way into the soil there.
The Marine Conservation Society has pointed out the site in the Humber estuary is close to some protected areas and is important for seabirds and harbour porpoises.
And both ships will have been powered by a dirtier, heavier kind of oil – likely marine gas oil or heavy fuel oil, though we don’t know the details yet.
Heavy fuel oil is nasty stuff.
Pic: Bartek Smialek/PA
Cheap, thick and tar-like, it can smother animals and is very dangerous if they consume it, and is extremely difficult to clean up. Let’s hope this isn’t creeping around the North Sea already.
We don’t know how much of either the jet fuel or the oil powering the ships has leaked, or how much will be burned off in the violent fires – which themselves are ploughing black smoke and filthy air pollution into the surrounding atmosphere.
And we don’t know for sure what was on the Solong cargo ship and if, or what, will go into the sea.
Cargo ship ‘had sodium cyanide on board’
It was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among other cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The container vessel was also transporting an unknown quantity of alcohol, said the casualty report – an assessment of incidents at sea – citing a message from the local coastguard.
Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and potentially can choke or trap animals.
Many of us have seen that uncomfortable viral video of a turtle having a straw yanked out of its nose. Previous accidents on cargo ships have seen plastic Lego pieces wash up in Cornwall 25 years later.
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Secondly, the impact depends on the sea and weather conditions around it.
Things like the wind and currents affect how an oil spill spreads in the sea. Scientists can draw up computer models to simulate how the oil could behave.
Thirdly, it matters how quickly this is all tackled and then cleaned up, if necessary, and if it can be.
Usually the slower the response, the worse the impact.
The coastguard has said the incident “remains ongoing” and it has started assessing the “likely counter pollution response” that will be required.
Such a response might need the help of numerous public bodies: the government environment department, the transport department, the Environment Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
So for now the best we can hope for – aside from the welfare of the people involved – is that not all the oil is spilled or burnt, that conditions are calm and that rescuers and those cleaning up can work swiftly.
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