The RMT has announced that it will put a pay deal to members with advice to reject Network Rail's offer, with further strikes to take place over Christmas.
Workers on the railways are seeking a pay rise in line with spiralling inflation, but were offered 4 per cent backdated for 2022 and a further 4% for next year by the Rail Delivery Group at the weekend.
The union said there were no guarantees beyond April 2024 and that the "detrimental" proposals would mean the closure of all ticket offices, mass job losses and mandatory Sunday working.
It had previously been announced that Network Rail members of the RMT would strike on 13-14 and 16-17 December, as well as on 3-4 & 6-7 January.
That will affect Scottish services as, while ScotRail is nationalised, Network Rail Scotland signallers and maintenance staff, who are in safety-critical roles, will be on strike.
On Monday night the RMT announced that it would put the pay deal from the Rail Delivery Group to members, with advice to reject the settlement.
The electronic ballot will be open until noon on Monday December 12.
A statement said: "There has been no improved offer from the Rail Delivery Group who still await a mandate from the government.
"As a result, all scheduled strike action will go ahead and the union awaits the outcome of a planned meeting with the RDG tomorrow."
Further strikes have been announced between December 24 and 27, when engineering works will be taking place and fewer passenger services will be running, and overtime bands have been cancelled.
RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: "We remain available for talks in order to resolve these issues but we will not bow to pressure from the employers and the government to the detriment of our members."
Read more:
Will Keir Starmer really call the SNP’s bluff?
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel