Train drivers have voted overwhelmingly to continue taking strike action for the next six months in their long-running dispute over pay, the Aslef union confirmed today.
Aslef (the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen) backed more industrial action after being reballoted, well over a year since the dispute started.
The announcement comes ahead of expected disruption for passengers from today and over the next week because of the union's strikes and an overtime ban.
Members of Aslef at 16 train companies will refuse to work overtime from today until December 9 and will stage a series of walkouts between tomorrow and December 8.
Operators said they will operate as many trains as possible but there will be wide regional variations, with some operators running no services at all on strike days.
Services that are running will start later and finish much earlier than expected, typically running between 7.30 am and 6.30 pm.
Services on some lines will likely be affected on the evening before and morning after each strike between December 2 and 8 because much of the rolling stock won't be in the right depots.
Unions involved in disputes have to re-ballot their members every six months to ask if they want to continue taking industrial action.
Aslef members at 12 train operators in England were balloted, each returning enormous votes in favour of high turnouts.
Mick Whelan, Aslef's general secretary, said the union was 'in this for the long haul', adding that their members, who had not had a pay rise for nearly five years now, were determined that the train companies, and the Tory Government that stands behind them, doing the right thing.
He said that the cost of living has soared since the spring and summer of 2019 when these pay deals ran out. The bosses at the train companies, as well as Tory MPs and Government ministers, have had pay increases.
He said it was unrealistic and unfair to expect their members to work just as hard for what, in real terms, was considerably less.
He also said that train drivers were fed up and frustrated that their employees failed to negotiate in good faith, making a proposal through the Rail Delivery Group which they knew, because they had told them, would be turned down and then blame drivers for the train companies' inability to manage services and the rail industry effectively.
The quicker fully automated trains are introduced the quicker these rail operatives can be kicked into touch. Some of these people are the best-paid people in the United Kingdom - the reason our train network is the most expensive.
These train companies are making millions regardless of whether the trains run or not, so they simply don't care about the passengers.
Don't these guys realise that going on strike for a day here and there is hardly going to solve the problem and the public will easily work around that?
Brits and their strikes hey! We must be the worst in the world.
They have a cheek asking for more money whilst these massive train companies are making millions of pounds a year. Millionaires look after millionaires whilst everyone else suffers.
Rail strikes, roads crowded. Air travel in chaos. Soon travel in the United Kingdom will be as difficult as it was in the 18th century.
The Government don't want us to go anywhere, they love keeping us at home.
If they can afford to strike for six months, where they don't get paid when they're on strike, then they can't be short of a penny or two.
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