Security staff scrap strike set to hit cross-Channel Eurostar services
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Eurostar runs rail links from London to Paris, Brussels and several other mainland European destinations.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
Follow topic:
LONDON - Security staff working for a subcontractor of Eurostar, the cross-Channel high-speed rail operator, have cancelled a planned strike later this week after receiving an improved pay offer, their union said on Wednesday.
Employees of facilities management firm Mitie called off the two-day stoppage due to start Thursday after the company agreed to hike salaries 10 per cent, with the lowest paid getting an almost 30 per cent rise.
They also secured changes to working conditions, including guaranteed hours alongside more flexibility, and a review of the existing sick pay policy, the RMT union said in a statement.
“These workers have fought hard for an improvement in the offer and succeeded,” RMT general secretary Mick Lynch added.
However Eurostar, which runs rail links from London to Paris, Brussels and several other mainland European destinations, will still see its services hampered by upcoming strikes across Britain’s domestic railways.
It will run a revised timetable on Friday and Saturday, during the busy pre-Christmas getaway period, and no services at all on Monday – a public holiday in the UK – due to British rail workers’ latest walk out.
The UK has been hit by a growing wave of stoppages across the private and public sectors, as decades-high inflation fuels a cost-of-living crisis and demands for big pay rises. AFP
