London strikes: Liz Truss pledges crackdown as Sadiq Khan says government ‘deliberately provoking’ unions – as it happened

There is a weekend of transport strike action ahead, with the tube, overground and some buses closed for the rest of the day in London, and another national rail strike due to start tomorrow morning.

Here is a handy reminder from Transport for London of what services are likely to be affected when – note the national rail strikes due for Saturday as well.

And here is why workers strike: Unite, one of the UK’s largest unions, has on Friday announced two pay rises for transport workers.

Bus drivers employed by Stagecoach working from depots in Aldershot and Guildford have agreed substantial pay increases following negotiations. And a strike at bus company Arriva North West has ended after 29 days after workers voted in favour of a pay deal.

The drivers at the Aldershot bus depot will receive a 13 per cent pay increase while those at the Guildford depot will receive 12.57 per cent. The deal covers a total of 170 members of Unite, the union said. That is more than the 10.1% inflation rate, and means that workers may not lose out, this year at least.

At Arriva North West, 2,000 members across 11 Merseyside garages have voted overwhelmingly (by nearly 10 to one) to accept an 11.1% offer. That will be worth an additional average of £2,300 on the workers’ salaries, equal to an extra £55 per week, Unite said. The workers had rejected a previous offer of a 9.6% annual increase.

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The UK’s transport department has announced £130m of funding for England’s bus network to make up for shortfalls in revenues caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The cash will help to cover six months of operations by the private companies who run England’s buses from October 2022 to March 2023, the government said.

Bus companies – like other parts of the UK’s struggling public transport industry – have been fighting to attract customers back to their routes after passenger numbers slumped during the coronavirus lockdowns.

The government gave bus providers their first bailout (worth £400m) in April 2020 in order to protect routes while passenger numbers were down. Since then the value of funding made available to 160 companies has reached £2bn, the government said on Friday.

Grant Shapps, the transport secretary who has had a busy day, said:

At a time when people are worried about rising costs, it’s more important than ever we save these bus routes for the millions who rely on them for work, school and shopping.

The Confederation of Passenger Transport, a lobby group for the bus and coach industry, perhaps unsurprisingly welcomed the money. A CPT spokesperson said:

Today’s announcement will help bus operators and local authority partners to balance a network of reliable and affordable services in the short-term as bus networks adapt to new travel patterns.

For the longer-term, we will continue to work closely with central government and local authorities to encourage existing and new passengers to get on board the country’s buses, ensuring they are provided the best possible services.

Diane Abbott, John McDonnell’s former colleague in Labour’s shadow cabinet under Jeremy Corbyn, is one of several MPs who have joined workers on the picket lines today.

Sam Tarry, the Labour MP for Ilford, lost his job in the shadow cabinet for defying an order by the party’s leader, Keir Starmer, that front benchers should not attend picket lines. On Friday he posted another picture of himself with striking workers in London.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, another left-wing Labour MP, visited a picket line in Brixton, south London.

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Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell has said the UK government should match public-sector pay increases to inflation.

Matching consumer price index inflation of 10.1% annually would imply billions of pounds of extra spending, and many economists including the Bank of England would argue that it would itself feed through into higher inflation.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4, he said:

I think that’s the only way that we can protect them [households] from sinking into, in some instances, poverty.

McDonnell said the roots of the discontent go back 12 years to the global financial crisis, and the austerity policies brought in by the Conservative government in its aftermath. He said:

There’s a build-up of a whole range of unions, some of whom have never been on strike before, faced with members saying to them, ‘We cannot survive with the wages we have at the moment’.

We need to inflation-proof our wages. The unions are responding to their members.

McDonnell argued that most of the inflationary pressure facing the UK is from external factors, citing the Bank of England. Those pressures are coming from supply chain snarl-ups caused by Covid-19 lockdowns (most notably in China) and the surge in energy prices accelerated by concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin will cut off gas supplies to Europe as part of his response to his country’s isolation following its invasion of Ukraine.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has blamed the unions for not putting a pay offer to a vote of members for London’s strikes.

The union has the backing of members for the strike action, after receiving 91.1% of votes in favour in a ballot in late June that drew a 53.1% turnout.

But Shapps wants the union to put an offered pay rise of 8% over two years to members. That is significantly lower than the 10.1% level of inflation in a single year, and would therefore imply that workers receive a real-terms pay cut.

Shapps told the BBC radio:

It’s certainly enormously disruptive, particularly in the capital today where the strikes are focused. But look, overall I don’t think there’s any reason to be having these strikes at all.

A very fair pay offer has gone on the table on the wider network of 8% over two years. This is no compulsory redundancies in return for modernising work practices that should have gone out with the ark.

If only the union bosses would actually put that offer to their members I’m pretty sure this strike would be over.

Sadiq Khan has been on the media rounds today. He has told BBC London that he believes the current government is “anti-London”.

This is building on his earlier criticism that the government is using the strikes as an opportunity to provoke unions into industrial action that may be unpopular with some segments of the population.

Khan said:

Of course I understand their concerns. I’m the person who has been vocal about the concerns that Londoners have, including transport workers, businesses, about some of the conditions the government’s been trying to attach.

I think this is an anti-London government. I think they’ve been trying to use this as an opportunity to provoke the trade unions, and I worry that we’re falling into the government’s trap.

What today does is give the government an opportunity to criticise trade unions, transport workers […] It’s Londoners who have done nothing wrong who are caught in the crossfire.

Liz Truss’s plans to “crack down” on strikes by British workers (following the lead set by her predecessor) comes with workers all over the country considering industrial action.

Workers at airport security and bin collections are among those considering action today. They would add to a long list of sectors in which workers have raised the possibility of strikes or taken action this summer.

Those sectors include (take a big breath): barristers, tram drivers, train drivers, rail workers, bus drivers, post office workers, telecoms engineers, doctors, teachers, nurses, civil servants, airport ground staff, check-in staff and hospital cleaners.

Workers doing bin collections in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead are the latest to announce a walk-out. Members of the GMB will strike on 31 August and the stoppage will continue until employer Serco makes an improved pay offer, the union said on Friday.

The union said a 6% offer has been rejected by members, adding that rates of pay in the borough are below those in neighbouring authorities.

Nikki Dancey, GMB’s regional officer, said:

This is one of the most expensive areas in the country to live and this pay offer neither reflects that, nor the current rate of inflation, or the attached cost-of-living crisis.

There is also some evidence that strikes eventually deliver benefits to workers. Airport security staff at Leeds Bradford Airport have suspended a strike so workers can be consulted over an improved pay offer.

Members of the GMB were set to walk out for three days next week over pay following a ballot vote of 93% in favour of industrial action.

Joe Wheatley, GMB’s negotiator, said:

Following a number of commitments put forward by Leeds Bradford bosses to improve pay, we now need to fully consult with our members working in security at the airport.

GMB‘s strike committee has agreed to suspend next week’s planned strike action to give us the facility, time and space to consider the new, improved offer with our members.

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The frontrunner to be the UK’s next prime minister has made her views on unions clear: she has approvingly tweeted a report that she intends to make striking more difficult.

“New laws will make it harder to call strikes and also guarantee minimum levels of service are maintained on public transport”, according to a report by the Daily Express, a newspaper which is strongly pro-government and is supporting Truss in the Conservative leadership race.

The rule changes could include raising the threshold for strike action – already fairly stringent in the UK – and limit the number of strikes unions can carry out once they have received the backing of votes.

She will push through changes “within a month of becoming Prime Minister”, the Express reported.

The European Federation of Public Service Unions (EPSU) describes UK strike laws as “complex and multi-layered with detailed regulations introduced by Conservative governments over years”. This already includes a requirement for 40% of the total workforce (including those who don’t vote) to vote in favour of action.

To add to the transport disruption, Thameslink reported this morning that all lines via Royston were blocked… by a balloon.

The balloon got caught in overhead wires, the rail operator said. Thameslink, run by Govia, is the UK’s largest rail franchise, operating lines such as those between Bedford and Brighton through London.

The balloon has since been removed, and the line has been reopened. Here was the offending item:

There is heavy road traffic in some areas of London as people try to find their way around the strikes, according to BBC Radio London.