The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (The RMT) have announced a 3 day national travel strike for later this month, which will see the biggest dispute on the network since 1989 involving 40,000 members across the UK and will include the London Underground.
The 3 days of strike will be Tuesday 21st, Thursday 23rd and Saturday 25th June 2022, and will cause major travel disruption to employees getting to and from work.
Working from home
Employers who do not currently offer working from home, may wish to consider allowing this over the period to avoid it impacting on productivity. From the employee’s perspective, attempting to travel into the workplace on these days using alternative transport will likely prove to be stressful, especially those employees with family/caring responsibilities who have other travel commitments before or after work.
For those employers who are unable to offer working from home, they could consider staggering start and finish times so that employees are not commuting to work at peak time. Whilst there will still be disruption for the employee, at least it would be minimised when travelling at quieter times.
For those employers that operate a strict logging in system at the start of the day, then a temporary relaxation of disciplinary rules relating to lateness is another way in which employees can be supported.
Employees may also request time off from work as annual leave to avoid having to travel entirely. Usual holiday processes should be used so that requests can be dealt with fairly. Should an employee not have enough annual leave entitlement, consideration could still be given to allowing a period of unpaid leave on the day of the strikes.
Preparation is key
As with any strike action, there is still time for these to be pulled; the RMT have said that they are open to meaningful negotiations, but rail bosses and ministers must come up with new proposals to prevent months of disruption.
Preparing now for how your business will need to adapt during these strikes will be vital to minimise disruption to the business. Communication will also be important to all employees so that they know what is available to them to help them deal with the disruption the strikes will have on their lives.
Further Information
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