Elizabeth line staff to vote on strike action
- Published
Workers on London's newest rail line could be going on strike
Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) will vote on industrial action soon.
The TSSA represents safety-critical workers including traffic managers and incident response managers.
They were offered a 4% pay rise, but argue this is "significantly less" than other staff have received, such as DLR staff, who received 9.25%.
Transport for London (TfL) say they also offered a 4.4% rise for 2023 and will work with TSSA to avoid strikes.
Talks at the conciliation service Acas over recent weeks have failed to make a breakthrough.
The union has also pointed out that workers at MTR, which is the outsourced part of the Elizabeth line, received an 8.2% increase this year, and staff at London Overground have been offered 6.5%.
TSSA organiser Mel Taylor said that this made Elizabeth line staff the "poor relations of the network".
The TSSA argues that other transport staff have received bigger pay rises
"The Elizabeth line is a brilliant addition to London's transport services.
"Our members have years of experience and work on the most modern railway in the country yet are paid significantly less than staff doing similar roles across the network - including colleagues on the very same line.
"Low pay is leading to high staff turnover, lack of fully trained staff, and reliance on overtime to run core services.
"Strike action by these workers would bring services across the Elizabeth line to a standstill.
"There's no need for it to come to that if RfLI (Rail for London Infrastructure) can see sense and produce a fair offer," Ms Taylor said.
TfL has made a two-year offer of a 4% pay rise for 2022, as well as a 4.4% increase in 2023.
The director of the Elizabeth Line, Howard Smith, said: "Strikes are bad news for everyone, and we urge TSSA to work with us and avoid this industrial action."
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