Labour Minister Heidi Alexander said the pay rise given to train drivers this year has plunged Christmas travel into chaos.
Due to a large sum of money paid into the worker’s bank accounts over the past few months, Ms Alexander said they “don’t feel the need to be working on the Sunday” which is causing problems across the industry.
Train drivers are turning down the extra shifts this festive season after being handed a 15% bumper pay rise by the government.
However, the pay deal included no requirement for weekend working. This has led to serious concern over travel this Christmas as the Labour minister asks for a “mature conversation” with trade unions about Sunday shifts.
After two years of strike action in England, Scotland and Wales, train drivers accepted a pay deal stretching across three years. This includes a 5% backdated pay rise for 2022-23, a 4.75% rise for 23-24, and a 4.5% increase for 24-25.
This morning, Friday 20, Ms Alexander said: “What happened this year is because the pay deal spanned three years, there was some back payment. And anecdotally, some of the things that I’m hearing is that because there was that lump sum, which was a back payment, some drivers and train crew are saying, ‘actually, we don’t feel the need to be working on the Sunday’ in the same way as they would have done previously.”
The Transport Secretary also insisted that this issue was a one off, adding it’s “not going to be a problem next year because the back pay only happens once”.
However, an inside source has disputed this.
They told The Times: “Post-pandemic we have seen that drivers simply don’t want to do as much overtime or rest-day working. It changed how people felt about work-life balance and drivers are no different. There needs to be a massive recruitment drive.”
The train drivers’ union explained that the issue would not have arisen if the operating companies had employed enough staff.
Speaking to Today on BBC Radio 4, Ms Alexander spoke on staff overtime: “It is not in the contracts of a lot of existing staff on our railways, and this varies incredibly by train operating company, to necessarily have to work on a Sunday,
“I want to have a mature conversation with the leadership of the trade unions, both Aslef and RMT, to work out how we can create a railway that is fit for the 21st century.”
