Further disruption on rail and bus services as transport strikes continue | Rail strikes

Travellers are dealing with an additional day of disruption on Saturday as 1000’s of transport employees go on strike in a long-running dispute over pay, jobs and situations.

Community Rail, a number of practice corporations, and bus companies in London and elements of Surrey can be hit by industrial motion by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT), TSSA and Unite unions which will even have an effect on Sunday morning practice companies.

Rail companies on Saturday can be considerably lowered, with solely a couple of fifth working and half of the strains closed. Trains will solely function between about 7.30am and 6.30pm.

The disruption to bus companies in west and south-west London and elements of Surrey is the results of a strike on Friday and Saturday by London bus drivers who’re members of Unite, in a separate dispute over pay.

Saturday would be the third consecutive day of commercial motion by public transport staff this week.

Mick Lynch, boss of the RMT union, apologised for disruption to the tube brought on by strike motion on Friday however warned it could not be the final, if the dispute can’t be resolved with negotiations for a brand new pay deal looming subsequent 12 months.

Lynch mentioned: “We’re very sorry that individuals are inconvenienced. We hope that individuals have sympathy for us. We’re abnormal women and men that need to do our jobs and supply a service, however whenever you’re being minimize to items by an employer, and by the federal government, you’ve bought to make a stand.

“We are able to’t stand by and watch our situations be chopped up. So we’ve bought to point out them that we’re lethal severe about the way forward for the companies throughout all of TfL, but additionally throughout our members’ situations, as a result of we don’t know what they’re discussing.”

Lynch mentioned the union had been shut out of talks between the federal government, the Treasury, and the workplace of the London mayor, Sadiq Khan.

In response to Lynch’s claims, Khan mentioned he and the RMT union have been “on the identical aspect right here, no one needs the federal government to be attaching unreasonable situations to our deal”.

A spokesman for the Division for Transport accused union leaders of “opting to inflict distress” by disrupting journey.

He mentioned: “It’s clear strikes usually are not the highly effective device they as soon as have been and union chiefs are now not capable of deliver the nation to a standstill as, in contrast to them, the world has modified and other people merely work at home.

“All these strikes are doing is hurting these individuals the unions declare to signify, a lot of whom will once more be out of pocket and compelled to overlook a day’s work.”