Guess who’s back: TfL restarts Night Tube services on Northern line from Saturday June 29, 2022 Transport for London (TfL) has announced it will restart Night Tube services on the Northern line from Saturday, two and a half years after they were initially suspended. The Northern line is the latest to see the return of the Night Tube, after services were reinstated on the Victoria and Central lines in November 2021 [...]
Aslef chief calls Grant Shapps ‘either inept or a liar’ after speech earlier today June 29, 2022 The Aslef union has slammed Grant Shapps for lying in a speech he made earlier today, where he accused railway unions of standing in the way of modernisation by carrying out strike action. “We’ve got to get out of these 20th century work practices in order that the whole thing works together and provides a [...]
Government modernising railways despite ‘unions’ best efforts’, says Shapps June 29, 2022 The UK Government is modernising the railway network “despite the best efforts of unions,” Grant Shapps said today. The transport secretary’s comments came as he announced £1bn worth of funding to replace the Victorian signalling system along the East Coast Main Line (ECML) – which connects London to Edinburgh – with a digital one. “We’re [...]
Exclusive: Rotageek’s CEO on ‘the silver bullet’ for the future of flexible working June 28, 2022 The early 2020s have been difficult for business leaders and employers. Not only have they needed to cope and adjust to unpredictable levels of customer demand, but they’ve also needed to to keep their teams going through the harsh uncertainties of lockdowns, pingdemics and furloughs. These curveballs have forced businesses to accelerate the need to [...]
Shapps warns RMT the country ‘coped’ with three strikes due to ‘collapse of commuting’ June 27, 2022 Grant Shapps has warned most of the country “coped” during last week’s strikes due to the “collapse of commuting” and increasingly hybrid working culture. Commenting after the third day of industrial action by tens-of-thousands of RMT union members, he said they had struck to “ defend indefensible working practices” which needed an update. Writing in [...]
Explainer-in-brief: The domino effect driving unions to strike over pay June 27, 2022 As this week begins, we come back to the railways with a sigh of relief. Yet the rail strikes of last week are unlikely to be a one-off, as RMT leader Mick Lynch has already warned more could come if the talks between the unions and the rail bosses keep on failing. Someplace else in [...]
Boris Johnson insists ‘no point’ giving public sector staff inflation-busting pay rise June 27, 2022 Prime minister Boris Johnson has swotted away public sector workers’ demands for higher pay. “I’m not going to give a comment on each offer or suggestion that the pay review bodies may make. But what I would say to you is that, at a time when you’ve got inflationary pressures in an economy, there’s no [...]
Negotiation has failed: the defence Keir should have made for rail strikes June 27, 2022 The rail strikes have finished, for the moment, and we can return to normal after the disruption. But we are promised a “summer of discontent”, with teachers and barristers next up to withdraw their labour. Disruption in public-facing services seems to be emerging as 2022’s leitmotif. The government responded to the transport strike by simultaneously [...]
Brits suffer weekend travel chaos as RMT goes ahead with third strike June 25, 2022 Strike action has entered its third day on the UK's rail network this week, causing severe disruption to passengers across the country.
Far from over: New rail strike alert amid fears of weekend travel chaos June 24, 2022 A fresh alert has been issued to train passengers amid fears that many are reluctant to abandon leisure trips planned for Saturday despite another rail strike taking place. Only a fifth of services will run and half of lines will be closed as 40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union at Network [...]