Merseyrail staff accept a salary deal as further UK rail strikes loom 

• TSSA union announced on Wednesday that its members at Merseyrail had voted to accept a 7.1% pay increase.
• Agreement is more than double what Network Rail and train operators offered during negotiations with the RMT union.
• The TSSA said the deal shows unions are “in no way a block on finding solutions”.

UK rail strikes: A train union in the United Kingdom has announced that its members have accepted a salary settlement, a day after the largest transport strike in a generation brought the network to a standstill.

Read More: UK opposition demands that the government “get the trains running.”

The TSSA union, which covers clerical, supervisory, and station personnel, announced on Wednesday that its members at Merseyrail had voted to accept a 7.1% pay increase, describing it as “a sensible outcome to a reasonable offer.”

Manuel Cortes, TSSA general secretary, said the deal showed unions were “in no way a block on finding the solutions needed to avoid a summer of discontent on the railways”.

The agreement, which is more than double what Network Rail and train operators offered during negotiations with the RMT union, is identical for both general and management grades. The TSSA stated that it was tied to November’s rate of retail price inflation and consistent with offers given to other grades whose pay had been renegotiated at that time.

Merseyrail is not part of the national franchise system and is administered by the Labour-led Liverpool City Region combined authority.

After twenty-four hours of industrial action, approximately sixty percent of services are projected to operate on Wednesday.

Read More: After failure of last-ditch talks, rail strikes in UK will proceed

On Wednesday, RMT negotiators were slated to start discussions with Network Rail, the infrastructure owner, and 13 train operating firms in an effort to avert planned UK rail strikes on Thursday and Saturday.