So we’re heading for another rail strike in the week that follows the Easter break. A bit of a strange on this one, as while the maintenance workers are striking for whole days at a time, the signal workers will be downing tools for fours at a time, twice a day for four days.

Who is striking, and when?

The maintenance workers’ strikes run from 6am on Tuesday 6 April to 11.59pm on Friday 9 April. The signal workers’ strikes run on the same days from 6am until 10am and from 6pm until 10pm. Clearly they are timed to cause maximum disruption to commuters, who travel at the busiest times of the day.

Why are they striking?

Network Rail has asked around 50 signal workers (out of a workforce of 6000) to move to new signalling centres and switch to a four day a week roster.

With regard to the maintenance workers, Network Rail states that it wants to make 1300 job cuts. So far 1100 people have volunteered for redundancy.

Who voted to strike?

Of the 6000 signal workers, 1705 voted in favour of a strike.

Of 18,000 maintenance workers, 6055 voted in favour of a strike.

What do the unions have to say?

RMT, which represents the maintenance workers, stated:

RMT members… could either sit back and wait for these cash-led maintenance cuts to lead to another major disaster on Britain’s railways or they could vote to take action to stop the attack on rail safety. They have overwhelmingly voted to take action.

“Nobody should be under any illusions about just how determined RMT members are to win this dispute and to stop this reckless gamble with rail safety. Nearly 150 MP’s have signed the Early Day Motion opposing Network Rail’s cuts plans and have urged the Government to intervene to call a halt to this jobs carnage on the tracks. We are reissuing that call today.

“RMT is in no doubt that the cuts programme drawn up by Network Rail would drag us back to the dark days of Railtrack and would make another Hatfield, Potters Bar of Grayrigg disaster an inevitability. That is what this dispute is all about and even the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has had to concede that the botched attempt to bulldoze through these cuts has raised serious safety concerns.

The TSSA represents the signal workers. Its General Secretary, Gerry Doherty, stated: “This is all about safety, the safety of the travelling public and the safety and security of our members at Network Rail. The Office of Rail Regulation agrees with us that these changes pose a threat to safety. It is time that [Network Rail chief exec] Iain Coucher started listening to his staff and the rail regulator.’

How does Network Rail respond?

Network Rail claims that the maintenance workers strike is about:

changing working practices (we need more people rostered on at night and weekends because the railways are too busy nowadays to do much maintenance work during the day). What it’s NOT ABOUT is safety – the railway is the safest it has ever been (welcome to check with Rail Safety and Standards Board) and we’d do nothing to jeopardise that.

With regard to the signal workers, Network Rail claims that ‘small local issues [have been] escalated to a national level purely for political purposes’. It points out that of the average wage of the 50 affected workers is £48,113, and that the highest-paid receives £65,616.

What is the likely effect?

Network Rail claims that the effects of the maintenance workers’ strike will be minimal. ‘The network can operate for about a week with this workforce on strike as we have enough contingency staff to cover important safety work and to respond to incidents and kit breaking down.’

The last four-day maintenance workers’ strike was two years ago, and saw no cancelled trains, no safety incidents, and 92% of trains running on time.

The impact of the signal workers’ strike is likely to be more hard-felt. As few as 20% of trains may run, and some lines may see no trains at all.