For a handful of British commuters who have no choice but to embark on Tuesday’s ravaged railways, the experience brought back memories of the dog days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when most office workers stayed home.
In Brighton on the South Coast, only 30 or 40 passengers, who could no longer work from their free bedrooms and kitchen tables, waited in the Southern Rail Service Hall at 7:15 a.m. to London Victoria, most with work that required them to travel.
Among them was John Brett, a construction site manager who was supposed to be in London, as usual, to oversee the construction of a new hotel in Soho.
As someone who worked during the pandemic, Brett had no sympathy for the RMT union’s argument that railroad workers deserved a pay rise because they kept the country moving during that time.
“I am grateful that they kept the trains running during the pandemic, but we all came to work,” he said. “I pay a lot of money – £ 150 a week – to go up and down [to London] and we just need better service. ”
John Brett had to be in London to oversee the construction of a new hotel in Soho © Charlie Bibby / FT
But across the country, a large number of other workers who have become accustomed to working from home in the last two years have done so.
“We’ve had two years of practice, so we’re already well aware that we can work from home when needed,” said Anne Franke, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute.
“The world has changed. Most of our members now have hybrid work as the norm, which means strikes are not as destructive as they would have been three years ago. “
Traffic jams from the TomTom location technology team show only a moderate increase in congestion levels outside London. In Hull, congestion increased by only 4 percent from a week ago, while the figure was 7 percent in Liverpool and Newcastle.
At the other end of the Brighton-London line, at Victoria Station, Stephanie Mall, a nurse at a hospital in West London, was struggling to work on the road, picking up several buses from East Dulwich.
“Not everyone can work from home, but unfortunately this is a fact of life and a fact of our work. “I chose to do my job and I’m happy to come in,” she said.
Stephanie Mall had to take a few buses from East Dulwich © Anna Gordon / FT
Many Londoners also rode on two wheels, with the Santander Cycle rental volume up 46% on Tuesday morning from the previous day.
But if office workers largely escaped the chaos for leisure and industry-dependent industries such as restaurants, hotels, nightclubs and taxi rides, the strikes led to personal disruption and significant financial losses.
In Manchester, Sandra Vint of Middlesbrough was forced to wait nearly six hours at the airport after landing in Turkey to find her train at 5.40am through York, it was canceled. At 8.30 in the morning she was in Manchester Piccadilly and was still waiting another hour for a connection.
But she said she sympathized with the striking railway staff. “Yes, of course. I sympathize with anyone who is not getting enough pay. Prices are rising for everyone,” she said.
Sandra Vint waited for nearly six hours at Manchester Airport © Jennifer Williams / FT
Outside the station, black taxi driver Yasser Abdelrahman Shaaldin endured a long wait for passengers. “It’s very quiet,” he said. “On a morning like this, a lot of people will come in and out, and that will be backed up by drivers – I haven’t had a single fee yet.”
For businesses such as restaurants and theaters that were hit hard during the pandemic, the cost of the strike was again reported in canceled reservations and lost revenue. But this time there is no state protection for their losses.
Munia Barua, managing director of policy and strategy at London First, the capital’s business group, said railway strikes this week were expected to reduce total gross value added – an indicator of economic productivity – by £ 52m across the capital.
Restaurateur Soren Jessen, who owns Lombard Street 1 in City, said the restaurant would be operating at a loss this week, undermining the momentum of a strong start to June.
“Half a la carte [customers] we also canceled 100 percent of our events, “he said.
Soren Jessen says his restaurant in the City of London will be at a loss this week © Anna Gordon / FT
De Gunevardena, chairman of D&D London, which owns 45 restaurants, mostly in the London area, said diversion bookings fell by a quarter this week, particularly painful during one of the busiest periods of the year for corporate entertainment.
“The hospitality industry, especially in central London, has had enough challenges to deal with as we try to recover from Covid, to deal with inflation. . . so we need it like a hole in the head, “he said.
Brighton Station © Charlie Bibby / FT
According to Kate Nichols, CEO of UK Hospitality, uncertainty over whether the strikes will be repeated in the summer has already led to an increase in the cancellation and postponement of future reservations for restaurants and conferences.
Evening trade for theaters, casinos and nightclubs will also be affected, warned Michael Kiel, chief executive of the Night Time Industries Association, who said the cost would reach “millions” as the sector enters its busy festival season.
In anticipation of what could happen, the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden has taken what it considers a “very rare” step to cancel its performance on Tuesday night at Madame Butterfly, as well as Così fan tutte’s performances on Wednesday and Saturday. blaming the strikes.
And Glastonbury, the largest music festival in the UK, is also expected to be caught in the interruption as its doors open on Thursday.
Glastonbury Bus © Simon Chapman / LNP
Some schools in London, where many more children travel to school than elsewhere, have also been forced to make unforeseen expenses by planning lifts or even staff stays in hotels overnight, said Steve Chalk, founder of Oasis, a chain of about 50 academies in the United Kingdom.
Recommended
He said the industrial action highlighted the cost of living crisis affecting families in Oasis schools, where children have higher than average rates of free school meals. “Nobody wants a strike – I don’t think even unions want a strike,” he said. “But at the end of the day, some of these transport workers will be the parents of children in our schools.”
Report by Peter Foster in Brighton, Daniel Thomas, Oliver Barnes, Philip Giorgiadis and Bethan Staten in London and Jennifer Williams in Manchester
Add Comment