Nottingham city tram strike starts over pay dispute

Tram workers and bosses have clashed over pay

A strike that has seen a city's tram services suspended until Sunday has got under way.

Nottingham Express Transit (NET) said it was unable to operate any services until Sunday morning, due to the 24-hour industrial action by the GMB Union over a pay dispute.

NET said tram tickets would be accepted on many city buses.

The union said staff did not feel they had received recognition for working through the coronavirus pandemic.

'Let down'

NET said tram tickets would be accepted on Trent Barton's Rainbow One, Threes and Indigo buses as well as all Nottingham City Transport (NCT) services.

It said it was sorry for the inconvenience for customers and would resume services from 06:00 GMT on Sunday morning.

"The complimentary shuttle bus for the Nottingham Forest match on Saturday will operate as normal from outside Nottingham Station before and after the game," it added in a statement.

Sue Dowling, from GMB, said: "Working through the pandemic has been really hard. A lot of the roles of our members are public facing.

"We don't feel we had any recognition. We normally receive a Christmas bonus but this year that was taken away from us.

"We have been offered a two-year pay deal but we are trying to achieve parity with our sister company Manchester Metro, which is why we have rejected this offer.

"At the end of all this, we felt very let down by the company."

NET previously said it had offered a pay increase of 3% for last year and a further 3% for this year, or the level of inflation if it is higher.