UK train drivers to strike on Wednesday over pay and conditions

theguardian.com:

Rail passengers face further travel chaos on Wednesday due to another strike in the long-running dispute over jobs, pay and conditions, with many Conservative party conference attendees expected to leave Birmingham early to avoid disruptions.

Members of the drivers’ union Aslef and the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA), encompassing 12 train operators, will walk out, causing huge disruption to services across the UK.

The Aslef general secretary, Mick Whelan, has said the dispute would continue until the government intervened. He urged the transport secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, to “lift the shackles” from train companies so they could make a pay offer to workers.

“The message I am receiving from my members is that they are in this for the long haul and, if anything, they want industrial action to be increased,” he said.

Trevelyan, speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme, indicated that she saw “more clearly” the perspective of the railway workers after meeting with Whelan and the RMT general secretary, Mick Lynch.

She told Tory members at the party conference in Birmingham there was a “deal to be done” between unions and train operators, but stressed any agreement would require compromise.

Trevelyan said the “very last thing that the country needs right now is more damaging industrial disputes”.

Michael Fabricant, the Tory MP for Lichfield, said on Twitter that the strike action could result in a poor turnout for Liz Truss’s speech on Wednesday, saying: “Everyone I know from outside the West Midlands is leaving conference tomorrow [Tuesday] night because of the train strike on Wednesday. So if the PM’s speech is not packed out on Wednesday morning, you know why.”