Staff across the Merseyrail network vote in favour of a new deal that will see their pay rise by 7.1%. Tony McDonough reports
Merseyrail staff have voted in favour of a 7.1% pay rise offered by the train operator.
In a ballot organised by the TSSA rail union, Merseyrail employees voted 94% in favour of the deal. It is based on the RPI inflation rate from last November. It will be backdated to the first Sunday in April 2022. Management pay grades will apply from July 1.
The news came amid a week of disruption on Merseyrail and across the UK railway network. Workers at Network Rail and at train operators across the country are staging one-day walkouts on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday this week.
Although Merseyrail staff have not joined the strike, the network will not run trains on those days. This is because the action does include staff at Network Rail which operates the signalling on the network. It will also mean services starting later on each day following the walkouts.
TSSA general secretary, Manuel Cortes welcomed the pay deal. He described it as “a sensible outcome to a reasonable offer”. He added: “What we have seen in our negotiations with Merseyrail is a company which knows the value of our rail and transport network, both to the public and the workers.”
TSSA members in Merseyrail include station retailers, customer relations assistants, lead revenue protection officers, train crew admin assistants, driver managers, guards standards managers, station managers, service production managers, resource controllers, train service delivery managers.
They also include people in fleet, safety, finance, HR, IT and transformation. Staff are based both in Merseyrail’s Liverpool city centre HQ and at stations and other sites across the network.
Mr Cortes added: “What this clearly shows is our union, and sister unions, are in no way a block on finding the solutions needed to avoid a summer of discontent on the railways. Rather, it is the government who are intent on digging in their heels.
“The offer from Merseyrail will demonstrate to the entire country that Ministers are set on a course of needless and nonsensical intransigence which benefits no one. Grant Shapps and co would be wise to wake up and start talking seriously to our union as we ballot for industrial action on our railways up and down the land.”