The interview between Richard Madeley/Susanna Reid and Mick Lynch on Good Morning Britain on 13 December 2022.
INTERVIEWER
[Asked Lynch why he had changed his mind on keeping the Christmas period strike free]
MICK LYNCH
Something’s changed, Network Rail have decided from Wednesday to start imposing their unacceptable changes that our members have just voted against. They have told us that no matter what happens they will impose work-life balance changes, changes to the working practices and the cuts to the safety inspection regime on the railway by 50 percent. So we had to respond to that, so the additional strike action that we’re putting on is during the Christmas shutdown, as from Christmas Eve the railway shuts down for engineering work. During that period our members will take additional strike action which is frankly targeted at Network Rail’s engineering works rather than the passenger service.
INTERVIEWER
[Asked if the strike was just about pay]
MICK LYNCH
Network Rail are bringing a series of changes on what they call a modernising maintenance program that involves cutting 50 percent of maintenance scheduled tasks, so it will cut the safety regime and the inspection regime by 50 percent. They want to move our members to a far greater level of unsocial hours, so Saturday nights, weekend work, midweek nights, they’re seeking to change their competency levels as they want them to work outside their current skill levels and we’ll keep talking to the company on that, but at the moment their proposals
are not acceptable. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t reach a compromise, so for many of our members in Network Rail pay is secondary to the changes to their working lives and the fact that they probably won’t see their families at the levels that they’re used to. The unsocial hours element is very important to them.
On the train operating companies they want to shut every booking office in Britain, they want to bring in driver-only operation and many other changes to our people’s terms and conditions that are not acceptable at this stage, all at a cut price way below inflation pay
increase on both of those companies.
INTERVIEWER
[Asked Lynch if some of his supporters were opposed to the strikes as they were almost sadists for the strike at this time of year? Why were strikes not in January?]
MICK LYNCH
We’re not targeting Christmas, it isn’t Christmas yet Richard I don’t know when your Christmas starts, but mine starts on Christmas Eve.
INTERVIEWER
[Called Lynch disingenuous]
MICK LYNCH
You’re ranting Richard. Have you finished? I have answered the question, if you give me a minute, I will answer.
INTERVIEWER
[Accused Lynch of talking nonsense, that Christmas doesn’t begin on Christmas Eve]
MICK LYNCH
Richard, why don’t you just interview yourself if you want to?
INTERVIEWER
[Said he was holding Lynch to account]
MICK LYNCH
Well you can’t interrupt me if you don’t let me talk.
INTERVIEWER
[Asked Lynch why action was being taken over the Christmas period]
MICK LYNCH
Are you going to let me speak now? I’ve told you that Network Rail will start imposing these changes from 15 December. They told us that three weeks ago, they told us that the consultation process had finished and they will move towards implementation so our strike action is
is in response to that. The strike action we’re taking at Christmas is during the Christmas close down where there will be no passenger services running after the evening of 24 December, so that does not impact on Christmas because the railway is closed down from the 25th to
the 26th into the 27th and that’s when we’re taking the action that you’re referring to. This week’s action was given with three weeks notice, well in advance so that we could get negotiations going and we haven’t actually had strike action for eight weeks, so there’s been plenty of time for the company to come up proposals that may be acceptable and our members have rejected those proposals on Network Rail on a turnout of 83%, two-thirds of them voted against the proposals, so we have to move this dispute forward.
I have no intention of spoiling people’s Christmas, the government is is contributing to that, that spoiling of people’s Christmas because they’ve brought these strikes on by stopping the companies from making suitable proposals. That’s the position that we’re in and we’ll have to keep this dispute going until we get a reasonable settlement and a reasonable set of proposals that our members want to accept.
[INTERVIEWER]
[Asked Lynch if this was in the hands of the Government and do the RMT need public support for these strike actions?]
MICK LYNCH
Didn’t you run a poll on your show last week where two-thirds of the respondents said that they supported the strikes, that’s after we announced them? I saw a poll on Yougov last week that said that the public was still supporting our railway strikes.
INTERVIEWER
[Questioned whether that support was still present?]
MICK LYNCH
What did the poll that your program ran online last week say?
INTERVIEWER
[Said they didn’t know]
MICK LYNCH
Well, I know. It was on your programme last week and we’ve got two-thirds of the support. We’ve still got plenty of time before the Christmas Eve strikes if Andrew Haines, the train operating companies, Hugh Merriman the Rail Minister and Mark Harper the Secretary of State, want to come to me with a set of serious proposals to improve their offer so that we can get a settlement to the dispute we’ll come over and see them as soon as possible. They’ve already invited me to a set of talks and we’ll attend those to try and get a settlement to this dispute. When our members decide that they want to accept it, that’s when the dispute will be finished.
