Train drivers accept pay deal, ending two-year dispute at 16 companies, ASLEF says

Train drivers have voted overwhelmingly to accept a multi-year pay deal, ending a two-year dispute at 16 rail companies, their union ASLEF has announced.

Members voted by 96% in favour of the pay rise, which is worth 15% over three years, the organisation said.

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The offer was made by the new Labour Government within weeks of the party winning the general election.

It ends what ASLEF called the longest train drivers' strike in recent history, during which staff took 18 days of industrial action.

Mick Whelan, ASLEF's general secretary, said: "It is with great pleasure that we can announce the end of the longest train drivers' strike in history.

"The strength and resilience and determination shown by train drivers to protect their hard-won and paid-for terms and conditions against the political piracy of an inept and destructive Tory government has prevailed."

ASLEF had accused the previous Conservative government of "sitting on its hands" and refusing to negotiate, prolonging the length of the strikes.

Mr Whelan said it was "not a fight we sought or wanted", but after five years without a pay rise and "working for private companies who declared millions of pounds in profits and dividends to shareholders", drivers needed a "dent in the cost of living".

He thanked the new transport secretary Louise Haigh for "entering the room" and finding an "equitable way forward", saying that now trains will run in the interest of the passenger and taxpayer.

He also hit out a people conflating the recent bout of public sector pay rises with Labour's decision to cut the winter fuel allowance for pensioners, saying they should "be ashamed".

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