Train drivers’ pay will have increased by twice as much as that of teachers, doctors and soldiers over the past decade if their pay deal is accepted, analysis shows.
Drivers were offered a 14 per cent pay rise over three years on Wednesday night.
Despite this, members of the train drivers union announced on Friday that they would strike every weekend for the next three months owing to “a breakdown of industrial relations”.
Aslef, the train drivers’ union, has urged its 19,000 train driver members to vote for the 14 per cent offer.
If accepted, average pay for train drivers will have increased by £24,544 since 2011. This would see average drivers’ salaries increase to £67,034 this year, analysis of Office for National Statistics annual earnings data shows.
The £24,544 pay rise since 2011 far outpaces the £8,793 increase for new nurses, £10,062 for new teachers and £8,186 for Army privates.
It also outflanks the pay deals secured by police sergeants, who have seen a £13,641 increase since 2011.
Ben Wallace, a former Tory defence secretary, claimed the deal offered to train drivers showed Labour cares more about appeasing trade unions than raising defence spending.
Mocking Labour’s pledge to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent “when economic conditions allow”, he claimed this would only happen “when all [Labour’s] paymasters in the trade unions have been paid off with taxpayers’ money”.
Mr Wallace said: “Since arriving in office, it looks like billions of pounds have been spent on other priorities. What happened to ‘defence is the first duty’?
“So remember when Labour says defence has to have cuts, it was their choice, not the last government’s, to spend your money on Aslef and above-inflation pay rises.”
Richard Tice, the Reform MP for Boston and Skegness, called the deal handed to train drivers “extraordinary”.
Mr Tice told The Telegraph: “We are literally at Everest base camp in a game of leapfrog throughout the whole public sector, from GPs to junior doctors and nurses to train drivers.
“The people paying the price for this are the pensioners, who are being shafted on the winter fuel allowance, and ordinary taxpayers. We’re going to be rinsed at the budget in order to pay for this grotesque inflationary public sector wage spiral.
“What’s extraordinary about it is they are completely missing any form of performance-related pay. Anything a whisker above inflation should be performance-related.”
It came as a new Policy Exchange report urged the Government to take on 2,000 new train drivers a year to end the use of overtime bans as a negotiation tactic.
The think tank found Germany’s national network handled 38 per cent more passenger kilometres than Britain’s but has 91 per cent more train drivers.
Lara Brown, the author of the report, said: “For too long, trade union power has been strengthened by a shortage of train drivers.
“The Government’s generous settlement with Aslef demonstrates how difficult it is to negotiate, with a union able to threaten overtime bans and disrupt the service for weeks.”
The total train driver deal also includes backdate payments for the past five years, creating an overall payment worth thousands of pounds, despite public finances facing an alleged £22 billion.
New strikes, which will occur every Saturday and Sunday from Aug 31 to Nov 10, are over managers getting paid £2,000 bonuses to run services during industrial action.
Mick Whelan, the Aslef general secretary, said the dispute was separate from the pay rises agreed by the Government on Wednesday. On Friday, he accused LNER’s bosses of “boorish behaviour and bullying tactics”.
James Cleverly, a Tory leadership candidate, said Labour had been “played by its union paymasters”.
He added: “Offering a no-strings pay deal to militant strikers whilst stripping millions of pensions of their winter fuel payment is nothing short of a national embarrassment.”
The proposed deal with train drivers marks the latest agreement by the Government to end strike action which have hit the UK since 2022.
The industrial action, which was the highest since 1989, has seen teachers, nurses, ambulance staff, junior doctors and train staff walk out in disputes over pay.
Junior doctors have secured the largest pay offer since strike action began in 2022, worth 22 per cent over the two year period. This is followed by new teachers on 13 per cent and new nurses on 11 per cent.
Police constables, who cannot strike, have been given a 12 per cent pay increase since 2022. Army privates, however, have seen pay increase by 17 per cent.
The pay deals are generally decided by independent pay boards which are then approved by the government.
However, for most public sector workers, these recent increases have not reversed real-terms cuts in pay seen since 2011.
Starter nurses are still earning £363 less than in 2011, once adjusted for inflation, while experienced teachers earn £3,305 less. A police sergeant earns £2,689 less.
Meanwhile, train drivers, who have not experienced similar levels of public sector pay freezes, have seen a real-terms pay increase by £6,172, based on annual full-time earnings from the ONS’s annual earnings survey.
The survey shows that, out of 266 occupations monitored since 2011, train drivers have seen the third-largest increase in weekly pay. This is behind only certain business professionals and directors professions.
Rail transport operatives have seen the fourth-largest increases, equivalent to a weekly pay increase of about £296.
