Merseyrail: General Grades 2026 Pay talks – improved offer

Your TSSA Representatives met with the company on 2^nd June 2026 to continue further negotiations with the company on General Grades pay. This meeting followed TSSA members’ strong rejection of the previous 3.8% offered which we communicated out to members and can be read here.

We have now received an improved offer from Merseyrail following those talks.

Meeting outline and offer

TSSA raised concerns that we hadn’t received formal responses to all of the elements of our claim, that our members wanted an improved headline offer and were still seeking parity with other grades in terms of the overtime and Sunday working arrangements.

The company advised that they were not able to make an offer upfront in respect of Sunday working and overtime but were willing to discuss a framework on how we might be able to negotiate improvements to the current arrangements by making changes to existing practices that might enable improvements to be made.

As a result, the company have offered the following:

4.0% settlement for a 12 month pay deal (anchored against the November 2025 RPI anniversary of 3.8%).
For the following roles, an increase of £1,250 or 4%, whichever is greater: OBC's, SA's, Van Drivers, Apprentices
Upon the acceptance of this pay deal, Merseyrail commit to arranging a series of grade specific workshops to explore the potential of increasing Sunday enhancements for all general grade groups that are covered by the 2026 pay offer. The agreed approach is set out in an appendix in this pay offer letter

This last bullet point is underpinned by a proposal on how the working groups would be approached as follows:

“As discussed, upon the acceptance of this pay deal, Merseyrail commit to arrange a series of grade specific workshops to explore the potential of increasing Sunday enhancements for all general grade groups that are covered by the 2026 pay offer.

An initial principals meeting will take place at the start, with all reps/co-opted reps and full-time officers to outline principals of the sessions.

The subsequent working groups will be chaired by the Chief Operating Officer and relevant director and supported by the HR Team and include company council reps and co-opted reps.

Staff Side representatives will be nominated by the Regional Organisers and for those roles that are not covered by a company council, will have a rep co-opted in.

Co-opted reps will be grouped together with existing company councils with similar functions/responsibilities the makeup of these groups will be agreed at the initial principles meeting along with a schedule of meetings for 3 months to be reviewed after this period of time.

Once the workshop’s have concluded, a governance review will be held, chaired by the HR Director and the Regional Organisers to review the final proposals to ensure fairness of any proposals prior to implementation. The final benefits will be equal with parity across the board.

Release for staff side meetings in order for reps and co-opted reps to discuss the progress of talks with full time officers will not be unreasonably withheld throughout this process.”

In the negotiations your representatives sought to shape the working group proposals to introduce safeguards into the process to ensure that we increase the chances of having an offer at the end that is fair and equitable for all those general grades members who undertake overtime and Sunday working. Although ultimately at this stage we don’t know what the company plan to propose in order to enable uplifts to Sunday working payments and there is no guarantee that what the company propose to enable an increase in overtime will be acceptable to our members and reps. However, this does allow the opportunity for further dialogue and negotiation to get us to a point where something can be negotiated and agreed in the future.

The company made clear their belief that this is their best and final offer, therefore we are putting this to TSSA members to vote on and decide if they are willing to accept it.

Members of the General grades group with an anniversary date of January will receive a link to vote and are asked to respond by 9am on Monday 22^nd June