Proactive Investors - It would have been cheaper to have agreed pay deals, a government minister has said, after strikes by rail workers and Royal Mail (LON:IDSI) staff were reported to have cost the UK economy £6.6bn since the summer.
The figure was arrived at based on a calculation that businesses lost out of £1.4bn from days directly lost to strikes, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, with knock-on effects of strikes in other sectors costing the hospitality sector around £2.5bn.
Christmas and January trading alone has led to a £2.3bn hit, the Centre for Retail Research said, while train companies have taken losses on ticket revenue amounting to roughly £400mln.
Some 467,000 days were lost to strikes in November alone, according to Office for National Statistics data, with this figure rising to 1.6mln days between June and that same month – the highest number in over 30 years.
Rail minister Huw Merriman told a parliamentary committee that strikes cost the UK rail industry £25mln per weekday and £15mln per day at the weekend.
Asked whether the cost would have been enough to have solved the rail disputes earlier, the minister said: “It’s actually ended up costing more than would have been the case if it was just settled.”
Further strikes are expected, following five days of train strikes already in 2023, with two more walkouts planned for 1 and 3 February by the Aslef union and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport workers.
Other planned strikes:
- Nurses strike on Wednesday 18 and Thursday 19 January
- Ambulance workers on Monday 23 and physiotherapists on the 26
- Court staff on Saturday 21 January and then a week later on the 28
- Teachers through from January 16 to 20, followed by further strikes on 30 to 3 February
- Civil servants on February 1
Royal Mail workers, meanwhile, are yet to confirm whether further strikes will take place after a series of walkouts targeted deliveries in the run-up to Christmas.
The Communication Workers Union, which represents 115,000 postal workers, is currently in extended talks with Royal Mail at Acas, the conciliation service, which are due to conclude this Friday, 20 January.
CWU officials, who also were part of the hearing with the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Beis) committee, said the long-running dispute with Royal Mail was "clearly it is not an issue of affordability" as they pointed to the salaries and bonuses of bosses had received.
Simon Thompson, chief executive of parent company International Distributions Services PLC (LSE:IDS), who was recently criticised by predecessor Rico Back for lacking experience and being too aggressive in the talks, was questioned by MPs about board bonuses and suggestions that he made a mistake in giving £400mln to shareholders via a special dividend in late 2021 when it should have been held back to better use.