Translink: GMB union announces three day public sector strike across Northern Ireland after 'inadequate' pay offer

The GMB union issued a statement this morning saying a public transport strike across Northern Ireland will go ahead after unions rejected the “inadequate” pay offer.

Thousands of Translink workers on bus and rail services will now walk out for 72 hours from 27 February.

The news comes after public sector workers - including health staff, education workers and civil servants - staged one of the largest strikes in recent history in Northern Ireland last month, many calling for pay parity with GB.

The UK Government has given the reformed assembly £3.3bn to stabilise the public sector services - £600m of which was earmarked to settle public sector pay disputes

The three frontline passenger transport unions GMB, Unite and SIPTU rejected the pay offer as inadequate following a meeting yesterday.

Bus and rail workers in the three unions have repeatedly taken strike action to secure a cost of living pay increase.

The unions said that they stand ready to enter further dialogue with the company if they wish to avoid the action by improving on today’s offer.

Translink and the Department for Infrastructure have been invited to comment.

On Tuesday GMB made a similar announcement for the education sector.

It said some 3000 education workers across Northern Ireland could go out on further action after claiming the new Stormont Education minister has offered them 'no money'.

The GMB Union, which represents more than 3,000 school staff in Northern Ireland, warned of further industrial action after meeting the Education Minister Paul Givan.

The union represents classroom assistants, kitchen staff, bus drivers, cleaners, admin workers and others in the education sector.

The union claimed that Mr Givan made it clear that within the current public sector pay budget of £684 million there was nothing to address the pay and grading review for school staff, which has been ongoing since 2018.

GMB said it will now go back to members, with a view to taking further industrial action.

A senior source in a teaching union told the News Letter that as yet teachers had not been made a pay offer either by the new minister of education. They said of the GMB statement that "this doesn't look good".

In a statement issued after the meeting, Mr Givan said he would be bidding for additional funding from the Stormont budget to meet the pay demands.