Avanti West Coast executives earn more than double train managers while covering strikes, union boss claims
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Union is striking intermittently until late May in a dispute over pay for rest-day working by train managers. As around 80,000 Avanti West Coast passengers are hit by the second walk-out in a five-month series of strikes, the boss of the RMT union has claimed senior managers are paying themselves “double what our members would earn” for acting as train managers.
Three-quarters of intercity trains on the West Coast main line – connecting London Euston with the West Midlands, northwest England, North Wales and southern Scotland – have been cancelled as train managers walk out. One train per hour is running linking the capital with:.
No trains are running through to Glasgow, though a shuttle service is connecting Preston with the Scottish city. North Wales, Blackpool, Wigan, Warrington and Edinburgh have no Avanti West Coast service. Strikes are planned to continue on 12 January and every Sunday through to 25 May.
Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT, told BBC Breakfast that his members would earn only £250 for working an 11-hour shift on their rest days at the rate proposed by Avanti West Coast. He said that the company’s managers, when working as “management train managers”, earn between £500 and £600– as much as 140 per cent more than regular staff members.
