Thursday 24 November 2022 07:53 PM The man killing your Christmas: Mick 'Grinch' Lynch REFUSES to back down in ... trends now

Militant union boss Mick Lynch has refused to call off a series of rail strikes which are set to cripple Britain next month, threatening a Christmas of chaos as pub, fast-food, Royal Mail staff and nurses also prepare to walk out over the crucial festive period. 

The RMT chief said his members are 'once bitten twice shy' after calling off industrial action a fortnight ago with no deal to show for it - but added that talks with Transport Secretary Mark Harper on Thursday afternoon had been positive. 

It comes as a winter of discontent looms with tens of thousands of workers across vital sectors threatening walkouts in the coming weeks, including firefighters, midwives, doctors, postal workers and more. 

But Mr Lynch insisted he was 'not the Grinch' today and rejected the notion that he was 'holding the country to ransom', urging the British public to point their anger towards the government. 

He added: 'If we call off strikes we won't get a settlement. We've not had a strike for seven weeks and nothing's happened. There's been ample time for this lot to get their act together... and they've done nothing.'

As he spoke he was heckled by a man proclaiming 'Jesus is coming' and accused the union boss of being a 'communist', 'anti-Christ' and 'anti-Government'.

Transport Secretary Mr Harper said the talks had been 'productive' Thursday. He said: 'There was a shared agreement in the meeting, we both want to have a thriving railway that is sustainable for the future, that serves passengers, that serves the country and also provides good, well-paid jobs for the people he represents.

'So, I think there is a lot of shared agreement there, but we need to have the two sides - the trade unions and the employers - sit down, agree on the detail so that we can bring this dispute to an end.'

Ministers have come under mounting pressure to end the rail strikes crisis - as analysis showed walkouts could blow a £3billion hole in the economy by the New Year.

There will be four 48-hour walkouts between December 13 and January 7, forcing many revellers to cancel parties and shoppers to stay at home instead - and lay waste to events booked in hospitality venues.

There will also be a ban on overtime working from December 18 to January 2. This will hit services on Sundays and other key dates such as Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Year's Eve, when many travel to be with loved-ones and friends.

The carefully chosen dates will disrupt people going out to watch the final week of the World Cup, as well as Friday December 16, known as 'Black Eye Friday' because it is the busiest night of drinking before Christmas. After Christmas the return to work and school will also be hit by four strike dates in January.    

Mr Lynch said after today's meeting that Mark Harper had agreed to write to him with how he sees the union's dispute with rail operators 'going forward and taking forward steps towards a resolution'.

Mr Lynch said the RMT believes the Department for Transport is being constrained by the Treasury in the rail dispute.

He told reporters: 'We think their problem is that the Treasury is pulling their chain, and they're not independent actors.

'Now they've got to assert themselves as an independent department and get to grips with the crisis that's been created in our industry.'

Asked if the RMT would call off the strikes before Christmas, he said: 'Well, we called the strikes off two weeks ago, we gave a two-week period - it's gone past that now, it's nearly two and a half weeks - where we were told we would get a tangible outcome, we would get commitments and proposals. We've got none of that.

'So, you know, once bitten, twice shy, in that sense.'

The Transport Secretary has also said he will 'consider' setting up a liaison group at ministerial level so the industry and trade unions can speak with them about how a settlement can come about, Mr Lynch said.

He said their meeting was 'positive' in the sense they had 'got rid of the bellicose monsters that we used to have'.

'We're now starting to get a dialogue,' he told reporters outside the Department for Transport.

He said Mr Harper has committed to writing to him saying 'how he sees this going forward and taking forward steps towards a resolution'.

'What we're chiefly asked him to do... you've heard him say that he's going to be a facilitator towards a settlement or a resolution of the dispute,' he said.

'And we've said to him that there's no good having these warm words, we've heard them from his predecessor, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, but nothing actually happened. So we want him to set down in writing what he's going to do about the mechanics of how a resolution will be facilitated.'

UKHospitality, which supports Britain's pubs, clubs and restaurants, told the BBC that their members could lose £3billion in trade.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive, added: 'After two Christmases lost to Covid, these are events and sales the industry can ill-afford to lose. It is imperative that all sides come round the table to resolve this.' 

And today Levelling-Up Secretary Michael Gove piled pressure on his cabinet colleague Mr Harper as he stressed that negotiations are key to avert strikes after the Transport Secretary said he would not negotiate with the rail union boss.

Mr Gove told TalkTV: 'The way to resolve some of these disputes is through talking, through negotiation, through listening.

'And it will be the case the Transport Secretary, my friend Mark Harper, will be meeting Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT, later today to talk about this.

'I hope the two of them and others can hep set the framework so the people who are actually the key negotiators, the railway bosses, can find a way through with Mr Lynch.'

Yesterday transport ministers remained silent, failing to issue even a single tweet condemning the action or set out their strategy for dealing with it. 

Labour frontbencher Yvette Cooper declined to condemn the walkouts, despite being asked twice if she supported the strikes.

Campaigners urged ministers to get a grip of the crisis in the interests of long-suffering passengers, who have had a 'raw deal' for too long.

Transport Secretary Mark Harper will today hold crunch talks with RMT boss Mick Lynch in a bid to find a breakthrough. Sources last night said a deal with train operators was edging closer.

It came as the Centre for Economics and Business Research found the hit to the UK economy of the walkouts will have reached £691 million by January. Many losses relate to staff absences, such as retail or hospitality employees unable to make it to work.

The rail sector estimates lost fare revenue will have exceeded £320 million by January 2023, bringing the total hit to more than £1billion since the strikes began in June.

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: 'Rail strikes have caused untold misery for millions of people, and cost the economy dearly. It's time for ministers to pull themselves together. They must for once come up with a proper plan, get round the table and make sure that people do not face yet more turmoil over Christmas.'

Former transport minister Norman Baker, of the Campaign for Better Transport, said: 'The cost of all this is becoming huge.

'We want to see more people on the trains and every time there's a strike it doesn't help that objective. Ministers must meet with the unions, agree a deal and sort it.'

The RMT's walkouts over December and January will be made up of four 48-hour strikes between December 13 and January 7.

Meanwhile, Royal Mail workers, university lecturers and teachers went on strike today as industrial unrest continues to spread across the country in disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.

Picket lines were mounted outside postal delivery and sorting offices, universities and schools as unions edge closer to co-ordinated industrial action. 

A small group of members of the Communication Workers Union (CWU) were in Camden, north London, with banners and flags from dawn this morning. A few drivers entering the delivery office beeped and waved to show their support.

Talks have been held between leaders of unions involved in the disputes with the aim of taking joint action, such as holding strikes on the same day.

Around 70,000 members of the University and College Union (UCU) will strike on Thursday and Friday, and again on November 30, in a dispute over pay, pensions and contracts.

It will be the biggest strike of its kind, affecting an estimated 2.5 million students, with the union warning of escalated action in the new year if the row is not resolved.

The union says lecturers and other academic staff have suffered a decade of below inflation pay rises, with a 3% increase announced in the summer. 

RMT boss Mick Lynch denied he was 'Mick Grinch' when confronted about the scale of misery the walkouts would inflict.  He said: 'I'm not the Grinch, I'm a trade union official and I'm determined to get a deal.' He denied that he doesn't care about the British public or that he is 'holding the country to ransom'.

But he promised to 'coordinate' strike dates with other union chiefs to shut down Britain, with nurses, civil servants and postal workers having also voted in favour of walkouts. Teachers are still being balloted.

Britain is already facing a winter of discontent with civil servants, transport workers and even nurses deciding to take industrial action for the first time in more than a century. 

Kate Nicholls of UKHospitality said the strikes announced by the RMT yesterday would 'deal a hammer blow to hard-pressed hospitality businesses in city centres across the UK'. Ms Nicholls said strikes in June cost £500million-a-week to hospitality - so the figure for the busiest week of the year will likely be higher.

She said yet more strikes are 'catastrophically bad for hospitality workers, customers and businesses - the biggest trading week of the year and vital to securing viability for many businesses after the years of turmoil. Will cost the sector millions. Vital all sides come to the table to resolve and avert'. 

Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said: 'News of these rail strikes in the weeks leading up to Christmas will hit pubs in town and city centres hard.

'The week of the strikes is usually the busiest in the year for our industry, but instead of supporting pubs, customers will be cancelling bookings and staying home, whilst staffing shortages will be exacerbated by a lack of transport options for employees.

'Our industry desperately needs this Christmas boost, we urgently need a resolution to reinstate train services and ensure that customers and staff can travel easily and confidently, or the impact on trade will be catastrophic.'

Small businesses say that it'll be the third year of disruption, after two years of lockdowns and Covid restrictions, and experts say the strikes could make this Christmas their last in business.

Dr Jackie Mulligan, founder of ShopAppy, told MailOnline: 'These strikes have the potential to be a disaster for the high street. It's peak time for last minute shopping, Christmas parties, markets and festive treats. It's a third year of troubles facing retail and hospitality in their 'Golden Quarter'. For many businesses, this could really be their last Christmas'.

Dominic Bowers, owner of Stoke-On-Trent-based food retailer, Totally Delicious added: 'A volcano is about to erupt in the world of retail and hospitality and that was before these strikes were announced. A sector that literally serves the nation is facing unprecedented challenges and strikes won't help'.

Travel expert Nicky Kelvin, head of The Points Guy UK, said: 'With strikes looming across the rail network, many travellers will be looking for alternative routes as they start to plan their Christmas travel. This new round of planned strikes will not only create extra difficulties for journeys which are often deemed a stressful experience due to the volume of people doing the same routes but also coupled with the cost of living crisis - people simply don't have additional disposable income to fork out for different/more expensive modes of transport. Travellers are going to be forced to make the decision to either stay at home or seek more expensive travel alternatives such as hiring a car.

'There is also the added issue with potential Border Force strikes which may affect travel over the festive period. Border Force workers are among an army of civil servants at the Home Office, the Department of Transport and Defra who are threatening industrial action over the festive period in a dispute over pay, jobs and pensions. With many of these workers having integral front line roles at airports and seaports, if these strikes do go ahead, coupled with any rail strikes will likely result in travel chaos.'

Ministers have been urged to 'get a grip' on the looming crisis amid threats of coordinated walkouts with other industries. They have repeatedly promised to pass laws to rein in such disruptive strikes. But there is no prospect of measures coming into force until well into next year.

Government sources last night insisted the 'glimmering outline' of a deal with the RMT was emerging but insisted ministers would not be bounced into a settlement.

'We need to get a deal that works for all taxpayers, and that includes the taxpayers that don't use the railways,' said one insider.

Tim Shoveller, Network Rail's chief negotiator, said 'no-one can deny the precarious

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