Merseyrail: Management Grade 2025 Pay Offer Survey

Dear TSSA Management graded member,

                                                                                            Today we have held the 2^nd of the Management Grade pay meetings with Merseyrail.

We made it clear that if they were to offer flat percentage pay rise of 4% (the sum of the previous 3.4% and what they had advised us was the value of offering an additional days annual leave would be 0.6%) that we were mandated by members to accept the deal without the need to have a members vote on the offer.

They explained that they were not mandated by their board to increase the pay offer to that level and that they had entered into pay negotiations by seeking to offer the best that they could without the normal cut and thrust that is normally seen in pay negotiations. i.e. they hadn’t started negotiations with a deliberately low pay offer to then be bargained upwards.

As we had previously had conversations about what the logical reference point for pay talks in terms of which months RPI figure should be used there was some discussion on this in terms of their future budgetary planning and whether this should be changed for future years and we agreed to take this time to the next Management company council to discuss (given that the company wasn’t proposing to change the reference month for this years talks – February 2025 RPI or 3.4%). They maintained that they had always previously used the February figure due to the historic anniversary date of the General Grades which is now no longer the case.

In the end the company stated that they were in a position to make a “Best and Final Offer” this was as follows:

• One year pay offer – 3.5% increase on a 1st July anniversary date.
• Annual leave – additional 1 day of annual leave for all managers in the bargaining unit.
• Working group – commitment to form a working group to discuss flexible working and potential reduction of working week.

As you can see, whilst this did not meet the aspiration that we put to them at the beginning of the meeting, it is none the less an improved offer and an additional 0.1% increase. Having assessed this and compared with elsewhere in the industry we believe that this is the best that can be achieved through negotiations alone and therefore we are recommending that members vote to accept this offer.

We will conduct a survey which will close on 9am on 14^th August 2025 we will of course be led by how members vote and respond to the company accordingly.

Members will be sent a link to the survey direct