Grant Shapps tells rail staff not to ‘risk striking yourself out of a job’

theguardian.com:

The transport secretary has told rail staff not to “risk striking yourself out of a job” just days before industrial action that will close much of the railway next week.

In a speech in which Grant Shapps said he was “appealing directly to workers” instead of unions, he claimed the strikes were “a bid to derail reforms that are critical to the network’s future, and designed to inflict damage at the worst possible time”.

Network Rail bosses have estimated that next week’s stoppages, by RMT members on its signalling and maintenance staff across Great Britain, as well as onboard and station staff working for 13 train operators in England, will cost the industry about £150m in lost revenue.

Speaking at a Siemens train depot in north London, Shapps said he wanted to see staff given a pay rise, but added: “Pay needs to be in step with the wider public sector.”

He refused to say what a fair level of pay would be, but this week he highlighted the 7% rise over a decade that police received, and the salaries of nurses that are 30% lower than average rail workers.

Shapps said: “Today the railway is in a fight. It’s not only competing against other forms of public and private transport. It’s in a battle with Zoom, Teams and remote working.”

After the pandemic, he said, strikes would “lose even more passengers, more revenue … and potentially lose thousands of railway jobs”.

He added: “Don’t risk striking yourselves out of a job. Don’t pitch yourselves against the public.” Questioned afterwards, Shapps said the words were “not a threat, it’s a statement of reality”.

He reiterated the idea that agency workers could be used, should strikes be prolonged. “Transferrable skills, sometimes called agency working, will be something which will become