NEWS.CATEGORY: Industrial

Merseyrail: 2026 General Grades Pay talks and offer

After 2 meetings we have received a “full and final” pay offer from Merseyrail in respect of the General grades that fails to address any of the items in our pay claim.

Based on the members’ pay claim survey we submitted a pay claim which on top of a substantial increase to headline pay included a request for:

  • No Compulsory Redundancies
  • Improved overtime enhancements - seeking parity with other grades who receive time and a half for Sundays.
  • Minimum payment for the lowest pay
  • A reduction to the working week of 32 hours over a 5-day week – seeking parity with other grades within Merseyrail.
  • Increase to basic annual leave entitlement – seeking an increase in annual leave as we are aware this is much higher for other grades within Merseyrail than say clerical members.
  • Introduction of a bonus structure for all and reintroduction of the Christmas bonus which used to be paid.

 
We have had 2 pay meetings.
In the first meeting (Scheduled for just 90 minutes on 29th Jan) the company never made a formal offer but alluded to the fact that the Drivers were able to accept and offer of 4% in the meeting that this could be on offer.

Both the TSSA representatives in the Room (Sam Brick & Peter Rose) and the Full-time officer, Alan Valentine, made representations that they wanted to see progress on the items in relation to parity and overtime was something that we had been seeking parity for many years now. The company went away to cost the potential increases up and another meeting was organised for 16th March.

In the run up to the second meeting the company advised that Peter couldn’t attend as he was co-opted and not an official rep and pointed to the Collective Bargaining Agreement which states only the Full time officer and 1 rep can attend pay talks, although somehow RMT were able to bring in 4 reps in 2025 and had 2 reps in the talks this year, this restriction looked more about trying to prevent strong voices being in the room than any legitimate reasoning!  Peter has attended the pay talks for many years now and now that Sam was elected onto company council it was useful for Sam to work alongside someone seasoned in their role.
 
However, I was immensely proud of Sam in ensuring that she stood up for general grades in the talks, particularly in Clerical grades and in control Making various valid points to the company during the meeting.
 
In the second meeting the company outlined that they believed the costs of increasing overtime would equate as follows:

Overtime rate% cost as reflected by headline pay
Time and a Quarter1%
Time and a Third1.8%
Time and a half3.49%

 
 
Having outlined these figures, they did later spell out that they didn’t intend on making an offer on overtime as part of these talks but would commit to talks with Steve Dodd chairing meetings with smaller grade groups in order to discuss productivity type items, appreciating that we might need to field ordinary members to participate in these where there are current Representative vacancies. The trade union side had concerns that this was an attempt to divide and conquer and that ultimately there wouldn’t be any assurances that deals could be done that would offer members tangible benefits. When the trade union side made clear our desire to see upfront improvements because of concerns that there were no guarantees that those talks would yield results, the company’s approach seemed to change, and they seemed be put out about this request.
 
In the end they came back with a full and final offer of 3.8% and when asked why this didn’t reflect the 4% offered to Drivers they advised that was because we hadn’t agreed to the way forward on overtime and therefore as it didn’t seem we would be able to accept a straight headline only pay offer they weren’t prepared to offer the same amount. Ironically, this has added to our wider concerns about parity and different treatment of certain grades!
 
In effect it felt like the company were being petulant and we said as much to them in the meeting, we also advised that having turned members down on improving overtime they would have been more likely to get members to vote for the pay deal if they had continued with a 4% offer! In effect we were now forced into a situation of recommending rejection of the pay offer!

At the end of the meeting when they advised they would put their offer in writing to us we requested that the company supply us with a response to each of our pay claim items, particularly if they intended to make a minimum payment for the lowest paid but when the pay offer was received it simply stated the following:
General Grades 2026 Pay Offer
Please find below confirmation of the best and final pay offer to settle pay for the General Grades for 2026:
One Year pay settlement.
3.8% settlement (equivalent to the November 2025 RPI anniversary date of 3.8%).”
 
As a result we are recommending that you reject this pay offer because of the way the company have ignored the elements of your claim and how it falls short of 4% deal offered to other grades who were already on higher starting wages than any of the general grades we were negotiating for, work less hours and have higher overtime rates!
 
Please vote to Reject the pay offer using the link below:
 
(link has been sent to affected members direct)
 
We will also be asking you to indicate if you would be prepared to be balloted for industrial action and suggest that if you vote Yes in this regard we will be in a stronger position to reopen negotiations with the company.
 
It would be our intention to propose further talks to seek an improved offer before conducting a legally binding industrial action ballot.