An investigation by the unbiased reality checker confirms that the transport secretary and different Tory MPs have gotten their figures improper relating to what hanging rail staff earn.
The pay of railway employees has been extensively mentioned this week, with totally different sources citing considerably totally different figures.
In an interview with Sky Information, transport secretary Grant Shapps claimed the standard rail worker earns £44,000 a 12 months. In the identical breath Shapps mentioned nurses earn a median £31,000 a 12 months, seemingly insinuating that, as “they don’t get a foul deal”, it will be unfair to present rail employees a pay rise.
The £44,000 sum was repeated by Tory MPs, Chris Philip, Jonathan Gullis and Nick Fletcher, when discussing the strikes.
The RMT union tells a special story, saying the common RMT member working in rail earns round £33,000, together with all employees, from upkeep crew to in-house cleaners.
The correct-wing papers haven’t held in peddling comparable exaggerations in regards to the pay of rail employees .The Specific for instance insists that railway employees have already acquired pay rises and bonuses, one thing which, within the paper’s phrases “contradicts claims made by the hard-Left union’s boss.”
Full Truth does its personal digging
To make clear the reality, unbiased reality checker Full Truth has carried out its personal digging. Full Truth’s verdict is that the £44,000 determine is “not consultant of hanging employees.”
“Whereas the wage referred to by Mr Shapps and others contains employees outlined as working within the rail sector, it doesn’t signify those that are taking part on this week’s nationwide rail strike,” says Full Truth.
The campaigners for the reality proceed that the strike primarily concerned members of RMT who work on railways. This doesn’t embody practice drivers, who the likes of Shapps and different Tory MPs are together with within the figures. Practice drivers belong to the ASLEF union.
The Division for Transport had advised the BBC that the £44,000 determine had come from the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS), which cited the median rail sector wage in 2021 as £43,747. Nevertheless, as Full Truth factors out, the ONS defines these employees are these employed as rail journey assistants, rail and rolling inventory builders and repairers, rail building and upkeep operatives, practice and tram drivers and rail transport operatives.
Speaking to the BBC, the RMT had mentioned that in eradicating practice drivers and including cleaners to the equation, which extra precisely represents these concerned within the industrial motion, you get a median wage of £33,000.
In conclusion, Full Truth writes:
“It might seem that the median wage of these taking part within the present RMT nationwide rail strike motion is considerably under the median rail employee wage of £44,000 being referenced by the federal government, although these figures solely check with RMT members taking part within the nationwide rail strike, and don’t embody employees concerned in Tuesday’s tube strike or the upcoming driver’s strikes.”
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is a contributing editor to Left Foot Ahead
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