Elizabeth Line strike action suspended following revised pay deal to staff

A planned Elizabeth Line strike has been suspended after the union and rail management agreed a revised pay proposal.

Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) were due to strike next Wednesday (May 24), the one-year anniversary of the Elizabeth Line, due to a dispute over pay.

TSSA members work in key roles on the line, including traffic management and incident response manager grades. In January, they had taken part in a one-day strike after it emerged colleagues in similar positions on other Transport for London (TfL) lines were better-paid.

Ahead of next week’s planned strike, the TSSA has however announced it has won a revised pay proposal from Rail for London Infrastructure (RfLI), which it will now consult members on.

TSSA interim organising director, Mel Taylor, said suspending the strike will “enable our teams to fully digest the changes and allow for further consultation and discussion over the coming days. We certainly do not take strike action lightly, but we have made this progress as a result of the action we have taken and planned to take.

“Elizabeth Line staff work weekends, nights and even Christmas Day. They are multi-skilled and operate the world’s only fully digital railway, but many earn significantly less than the salary paid to other TfL staff in similar roles. That is clearly not an acceptable or sustainable position and it looks as though the company is waking up to the fact.”

The announcement comes just a few days before the full peak Elizabeth Line timetable is due to be introduced on May 21, increasing its capacity by around 10%.

Customers will benefit from improved services to Heathrow Airport plus increased peak time trains between Paddington and Whitechapel, among other changes.

According to the most recent TfL data, more than 140 million journeys have been made since the line opened on May 24 2022.