Rail and mail strikes to continue in October causing chaos across the UK
30 September 2022, 15:10
Long-running strikes by rail workers and Royal Mail staff will continue in October, after the UK saw huge disruption to rail services in the summer.
Rail workers have yet to reach an agreement with Network Rail on working conditions and pay, while Royal Mail workers (who are represented by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), are striking over change and pay.
Train drivers represented by the Aslef union, in addition to workers represented by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) will strike on Saturday 1 October, affecting 12 rail operators.
These are the operators affected by the Aslef action:
- Avanti West Coast
- Chiltern Railways
- CrossCountry
- Greater Anglia
- Great Western Railway
- Hull Trains
- LNER
- London Overground
- Northern Trains
- Southeastern
- TransPennine Express
- West Midlands Trains
These are the operators affected by the RMT strikes:
- Chiltern Railways
- Cross Country Trains
- Greater Anglia
- LNER
- East Midlands Railway
- c2c
- Great Western Railway
- Northern Trains
- South Eastern
- South Western Railway
- Transpennine Express
- Avanti West Coast
- West Midlands Trains
- GTR (including Gatwick Express)
National Rail have warned that morning services on Sunday, 2 October are also expected to be affected.
Read more: Royal Mail workers to stage 19 further strikes over next two months
Read more: Fresh rail strike to disrupt services across the UK
National Rail said: “The rail industry is working hard to minimise the effect that this will have on our services but it is inevitable that services will be cancelled or severely disrupted.
"It is likely that there will be a very limited service on these days with no services at all on some routes.”
Workers are walking out over pay and conditions, with unions objecting to pay offers that are well below the inflation rate.
The Royal Mail strike is a 2 day walk-out that will start today, and there will also be four days of action involving all CWU workers.
24-hour walkouts will begin at 4am on:
- Thursday 13 October
- Thursday 20 October
- Tuesday 25 October
- Monday 28 November
Smaller teams and groups will walk out across various dates in November and December, and the union has said it will have a "dramatic impact", and will have a knock on effect on all deliveries.
These are the workers taking part and the dates the strikes will occur:
- Processing, distribution, international, collections and admin workers (Thursday 3, Wednesday 9, Tuesday 15, Thursday 24 November and Thursday 1 December)
- Delivery workers (Friday 4, Thursday 10, Wednesday 16, Friday 25 November and Friday 2 December)
- Network workers (Wednesday 2, Tuesday 8, Monday 14, Wednesday 23 and Wednesday 30 November)
Customers are advised to post items as early as possible before the strikes start, and continue to use Post Offices and post boxes, while bearing in mind that collections will be less frequent on strike days.
No letters will be delivered on these days, other than those sent by Special Delivery.
