Simon Calder delivers verdict on rail disruption this winter
Simon Calder delivers verdict on rail disruption this winterSimon Calder, The Independent, PA
Transcript
00:00 I'm afraid it is going to be a miserable December for rail travellers.
00:06 Effectively there's an entire advent calendar starting with nine days of an overtime ban
00:12 by the train drivers union Aslef, a whole series of rolling strikes right across England,
00:19 then we get into the schedule cuts and who could forget Christmas engineering works which
00:24 are going to be particularly bad on Christmas Eve.
00:28 Thank goodness that at least part of the industrial strife that has made passengers journeys
00:34 miserable for the last year and a half is finally looking as though it's over.
00:40 The RMT I think pretty exhausted, they've lost thousands of pounds in striking, they
00:45 are going to be happy to settle for a no strings increase and then talk at a local level about
00:53 productivity improvements.
00:55 Train drivers unions say we want a decent no strings pay increase, some of us haven't
01:01 had any wage rise for five years and if you want to talk about productivity we can do
01:06 that but it's going to cost you extra.
01:09 The government and the train operators meanwhile say you're joking, revenue from ticket sales
01:15 has collapsed, we're 20% down, the only way we can afford to give you any kind of pay
01:21 rise is if you make things more efficient.
01:25 caught in the middle of the poor old passenger.