ASLEF to vote on new deal for train drivers

ASLEF has secured a pay offer that it will recommend its members accept. The deal comes after a protracted dispute that has seen 18 days of strike action and a refusal to work overtime.

The two-year pay dispute, one of the longest in the history of Britain’s railways, centred on pay increases for drivers, who have not received a salary rise since 2019. The last pay offer in June 2023 was rejected by ASLEF. The deal that was offered by the previous Conservative government included pay rises of 4% but also included conditions related to training and rostering, which proved to be too much of a hurdle to clear at the time.

However, following negotiations with the Department for Transport, which took over negotiations from the Rail Delivery Group when the new Labour government assumed power, ASLEF has secured a three-phase pay offer of 5% for 2022-2023, 4.75% for 2023-2024, and 4.5% for 2024-2025 with the deal backdated and pensionable.

ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan said: “We are pleased that after being treated with utter contempt for the last two years by the privatised train companies, and the previous government that was pulling their strings, we finally have a new government – a Labour government – that listens and wants to make the railway work for staff, for passengers, and for the taxpayer.

‘The offer is a good offer – a fair offer – and it is what we have always asked for: a clean offer, without a land grab for our terms & conditions that the companies, and previous government, tried to take in April last year.

‘We will put it to members with a recommendation for them to accept.”

It is understood that there are no terms and conditions attached to this offer.

Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh said: “When I took this job, I said I wanted to move fast and fix things – starting by bringing an end to rail strikes. Finally, today the end is in sight.

“If accepted, this offer would finally bring an end to this long-running dispute and allow us to move forward by driving up performance for passengers with the biggest overhaul to our railways in a generation.”

Strikes have been held on 18 separate days since they began in June 2022. Alongside the strike days, ASLEF withdrew rest-day working at different periods since May 2023 which meant that no drivers completed non-contractual overtime.

ASLEF will now ballot members, recommending acceptance.