ASLEF rail strike is a "political strike"
'They want hundreds of millions of pounds worth of productivity for nothing'@MickWhelanASLEF says his union does not have issues with other operators and add that 'this is a political dispute generated by the Westminster government'.
Transcript
00:00 As far as the pay aspect of it is concerned, the rail delivery group which represents the
00:05 train operators, when talking about that they say that the offer would bring the average
00:11 driver's salaries from £60,000 to £65,000. They say that's more than double the average
00:18 UK salary. What do you think the public will make of that?
00:24 Well they've been trying the politics of our NV line for a long time now. They haven't
00:30 mentioned that we haven't had a pay rise for five years. They haven't mentioned that they're
00:32 making hundreds of millions of pounds in profits and paying dividends to their shareholders
00:36 yet they're not paying the workers that work for them. I think it's quite deceitful and
00:41 dishonourable the way in which they operate.
00:44 They also say they're ready and willing to talk to you but that any talks about pay also
00:49 need to include talks about modernisation as well and addressing working practices that
00:54 go back decades.
00:58 That's not true. There is no modernisation on the table. What they want is hundreds and
01:04 hundreds of millions of pounds of productivity for nothing. We have modernised. And bear
01:08 in mind I've done 14 pay deals in the last 12 months. We don't have a problem in Scotland,
01:13 we don't have a problem in Wales, we don't have a problem in freight, we don't have a
01:16 problem in open access, we don't have a problem in Mersey Rail, we don't have a problem in
01:19 Eurostar, we don't have a problem on the Elizabeth line. This is a political dispute generated
01:23 by the Westminster government at their behest. These people signed contracts with the government
01:27 to limit our pay. It's nothing to do with modernisation at all.
01:30 [BLANK_AUDIO]