Merseyrail staff accept 7.1% pay increase after ballot

TSSA General Secretary, Manuel Cortes has welcomed news that members across Merseyrail have voted to accept a 7.1 per cent pay deal describing it as “a sensible outcome to a reasonable offer”. 

TSSA members in general grades at Merseyrail voted overwhelmingly (by 94 per cent) to accept the deal, with members in management grades being offered the same terms. The offer for general grades will be backdated to the first Sunday in April 2022 and if accepted the management grades pay will be applicable from 1 July. 

*TSSA members in Merseyrail include Station retailers, Customer Relations Assistants, Lead Revenue Protection Officers, Train Crew Admin Assistants, Driver Managers, Guards Standards Managers, Stations Managers, Service Production managers, Resource Controllers, Train Service Delivery Managers, Colleagues in Fleet, Safety, Finance, HR, IT and Transformation.  

They are based in the company's head office in Liverpool Rail House as well as locations like Aintree Station, Birkenhead Central Station, Birkenhead North Train Crew Depot, James Street station, Kirkdlae Depot, Liverpool Central Station, Sandhills IECC, Southport Station, West Kirkby Station. 

The union accepted an offer based on the November RPI rate of 7.1 per cent because this was consistent with the pay offered to other grades with a pay anniversary date falling at that point in the calendar. 

Commenting, union leader Cortes said: “Well done to our members and to our union staff for clinching this deal at Merseyrail. It is a sensible outcome to a reasonable offer which goes a long way towards keeping pace with the escalating cost of living. 

“What we have seen in our negotiations with Merseyrail is a company which knows the value of our rail and transport network, both to the public and the workers. 

“What this clearly shows is our union, and sister unions, are in no way a block on finding the solutions needed to avoid a summer of discontent on the railways. Rather, it is the government who are intent on digging in their heels. 

“The offer from Merseyrail will demonstrate to the entire country that Ministers are set on a course of needless and nonsensical intransigence which benefits no one. 

“Grant Shapps and co would be wise to wake up and start talking seriously to our union as we ballot for industrial action on our railways up and down the land.” 

Merseyrail is the commuter rail and urban transit network serving the Liverpool City Region as well as areas of Cheshire and Lancashire. It is controlled by the Liverpool city region combined Authority and is not partof the national rail franchise system.

TSSA is currently balloting members over strike action and action short of a strike in a dispute over jobs, pay and conditions at several rail companies – Network Rail, CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast, Northern, LNER, Southeastern, Great Western Railway and C2C.