ASLEF is putting a new pay offer to its members, with a recommendation that they accept it.

As reported in Railnews yesterday, the drivers’ union took part in fresh talks at the Department for Transport, after an earlier meeting had been described as ‘constructive’ by both sides.

The union said it had been offered a ’no-strings three-phase’ series of pensionable rises, backdated where appropriate, consisting of 5 percent for 2022-23; 4.75 per cent for 2023-24 and 4.5 per cent for 2024-25. 

General secretary Mick Whelan had been accompanied at yesterday’s talks by assistant general secretary Simon Weller and executive committee president Dave Calfe. Mr 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 and 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.'

He continued: ‘We have achieved more in the last four weeks of a Labour government than we managed under a Tory government that set out to destroy us – first by refusing to meet us, then by insisting the companies could only offer us 2 per cent, then by offering us 4 per cent but with a land grab for all the T&Cs we have spent 144 years negotiating with productivity and sweat.

‘We have gone from people behaving dishonestly and deceitfully and trying to rip up all our T&Cs to a group of people who seem to understand the interests of rail workers, the travelling public, and the taxpayer.'

If ASLEF members vote to accept the offer, it will bring to an end a series of 18 days of strikes which began in July 2022. Of these, 14 were national and four were ‘staggered’ between different operators. There were also 12 bans on rest day working, most of which lasted several days.

Transport secretary Louise Haigh has welcomed the outcome of yesterday’s talks, saying: ‘When I took this job, I said I wanted to move fast and fix things – starting by bringing an end to rail strikes.

‘The Conservatives were happy to see the taxpayer pay the price as strikes dragged on and on, and passengers suffered. This Labour government is doing the right thing and putting passengers first.

‘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.’

There has been no comment from the Rail Delivery Group, which did not take part in the talks.