It’s day one of the RMT’s planned strike action after last-minute talks between train operators and Network Rail failed. The union has been demanding a pay rise of at least 7 per cent in the face of inflation – as well as opposing planned redundancies. The dispute is just a taste of things to come from various parts of the public sector.
It’s easy to see how people fed up with travel disruption could look unsympathetically at the unions and those who appear to be supporting them
The government line is that big percentage point pay rises are the wrong course of action as they will make the current economic picture worse. Simon Clarke, chief secretary to the Treasury, said this week that it was ‘not a sustainable expectation that inflation can be matched in pay offers’. With the Bank of England forecasting that inflation will hit 11 per cent this year, Boris Johnson said that it is right that public sector workers are rewarded with a pay rise ‘but this needs to be proportionate and balanced’.
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