RMT members at Network Rail vote to accept pay deal

Thousands of signal workers and maintenance staff in the RMT have voted to accept an offer from Network Rail.

It means they will not take part in any more strikes in the long-running dispute over pay, jobs and working conditions.

RMT members who work for 14 train operating companies are still due to walk out on 30 March and 1 April.

But the Network Rail result will be seen as a significant breakthrough.

RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said the dispute was now over, but said RMT members at the train operating companies would continue to strike unless they received the "right offer".

"The ball is in the government's court," he added.

The question now is whether this opens the door to progress on the train companies' side of the dispute.

The deal has been accepted after Network Rail amended its previously rejected offer of a 5% pay rise for 2022 and a 4% increase this year.

The government did not put any more money on the table, but the tweaked proposals backdated this year's pay increase by three months, meaning workers end up with a bigger lump sum upfront.

The RMT said the offer amounted to an uplift on salaries of between 14.4% for the lowest paid grades to 9.2% for the highest paid.

The package also included heavily discounted leisure travel.

There have been a string of rail strikes since June last year.

Without signalling staff involved, the disruption caused by RMT's walkouts is on a slightly smaller scale. Operators not directly involved are unaffected.