Get the latest news from RMT as it happens - join our media mailing list

Subscribe  here

Accessing PDFs

  1. RMT Media and Publications

RMT and TSSA to ballot members at Arriva Trains Wales over pay

Publication Date: October 13 2008

BRITAIN’S TWO biggest rail unions are to ballot more than 1,100 workers at Arriva Trains Wales for industrial action over a pay offer they say is unfair and fails to tackle the problem of low pay or to share with the workforce the financial success it has brought the company.

RMT and TSSA are to urge members in all non-driving grades across the company to vote for action after the company failed to increase a pay offer already rejected by both unions by massive margins.

The ballots, which both open on Wednesday (October 15) will close on October 28, and the two unions will co-ordinate industrial action if the company fails to table an acceptable offer.

“Arriva Trains Wales has not long handed its shareholders £14 million in dividends but it is the workforce that creates its profits and it is time for them to get a fair share in the fruits of their success,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

“This is the second year in a row that lower-paid grades have been asked to swallow a smaller rise, and our members are telling us they have had enough.

“It is obscene that while ATW is paying directors £230,000 we have reps who have had to go to the Low Pay Commission to discuss the problem of poverty wages at the company,” Bob Crow said.

Manuel Cortes, TSSA assistant general secretary, said: “Our members are very upset that they are being asked to take a lower pay rise than other employees at Arriva Trains Wales.

“We all contribute to the success of the company and we should all receive the same rewards. This is unfair and it should not happen.”

ends

Notes to editors: ATW’s offer to non-driving grades of 4.75 cent this year and RPI plus 0.75 per cent in 2009 was rejected by 77.2 per cent in a TSSA consultative ballot, and by 554 votes to 31 in an RMT referendum.

In the year to December 31 2007 ATW made a pre-tax profit of £11.9 million, paid out shareholder dividends of £14 million, and paid its highest-paid director £230,000.