Railway engineering workers to stage 48-hour strikes after rejecting pay offer

Railway engineering workers are set to take part in a series of 48-hour strikes next month due to a pay dispute.

The action comes after the workers at infrastructure group Balfour Beatty overwhelmingly rejected the company’s offer of a 5.5% increase in pay.

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union will take strike action between the 3-5 March, 10-12 March, and 17-19 March – with each of the walkouts starting at 10pm on the Friday and ending at 10am on the Sunday.

“These highly skilled workers have had enough of not been offered a decent wage rise”, said RMT general secretary Mick Lynch in a statement on Saturday.

“The cost of living crisis has affected all workers and our members are not prepared to pay the price while the company enjoy huge revenues.”

Balfour Beatty made over £8bn in revenue last year, RMT said.

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Mr Lynch added: “Balfour Beatty is a highly profitable company and they need to use some of their excess wealth to reward their workers properly.”

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Earlier this week, RMT revealed the next phase of strike dates, in which tens of thousands of union members will participate between 16 March and 1 April.

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The union said it had received “no new offers” from employers involved in the rail dispute, having earlier rejected the terms offered by Network Rail and 14 train operators on the grounds they “did not meet the needs of members on pay, job security or working conditions”.

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