Burnham hands train drivers on Manchester route bumper pay rise to avoid strike – including £720 boost just for covering five days a week
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
Andy Burnham's rail authority has agreed a bumper pay deal for Avanti West Coast train drivers after the Aslef union threatened strike action on the London-to-Manchester route, a settlement that has since drawn Conservative accusations of a political favour to a Labour-affiliated union. Leaked correspondence reported by The Sunday Times showed Aslef council secretary Si Goode telling members that a strong strike ballot had let the union pile "immense pressure" on Avanti and the Government, triggering an emergency meeting that produced the improved offer. Shadow transport secretary Richard Holden branded it a "capitulation," while the Department for Transport defended the deal as a way to avoid costly disruption, noting industrial action cost the railways some £850million in lost revenue between 2022 and 2024.
Under the final agreement, Avanti drivers — who already start on around £70,000 — receive an above-inflation 3.6 per cent pay rise, time-and-a-half for Sunday shifts, and up to £720 extra for covering a fifth working day. It followed Avanti cutting 38 services a day over the summer amid punctuality problems, with only 57.4 per cent of services running on time and 5.6 per cent cancelled over the latest year. It also emerged that Aslef donated over £300,000 to Labour in 2024, while a separate 12 per cent, four-year pay offer for LNER drivers has been put to a union vote.
- Burnham approved a bigger pay deal to head off an Avanti drivers' strike
- Drivers get 3.6% rise, Sunday premium pay, and up to £720 for a fifth day
- Leaked messages and Aslef's Labour donations fuelled Tory claims of favouritism
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Andy Burnham is the mayor of Greater Manchester, a role that gives him responsibility for transport in the region, including a say over rail services on routes such as the West Coast Main Line linking London and Manchester. Aslef is the trade union representing train drivers, and it had threatened strike action after drivers at operator Avanti West Coast rejected an earlier pay offer.
The dispute comes against a backdrop of poor performance on the route, with Avanti having cut a number of daily services and struggling with punctuality and cancellations over the summer. Rail strikes in recent years have proved costly for the industry and disruptive for passengers, which is part of why governments and transport bodies have generally sought to avoid them through improved pay offers.
Train drivers' pay and conditions are often a point of public debate, given that salaries on some routes are already well above the national average, while unions argue action is needed to secure fair terms and reliable staffing. Decisions on deals like this one can also affect other rail operators and their workforces, since settlements on one route are sometimes referenced in negotiations elsewhere.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Supporters of the settlement would argue that train drivers carry serious responsibility for public safety and provide an essential service, and that fair recognition of unsociable Sunday and rest-day working is reasonable rather than excessive. They would point out that a negotiated deal, however costly, is far cheaper for passengers and the public purse than the roughly £850 million lost to strikes in 2022-2024, and that a reliable railway depends on retaining experienced drivers rather than provoking industrial action. From this view, Aslef simply used legitimate collective bargaining, backed by a democratic ballot, to secure an outcome its members had already shown, by rejecting the previous offer, that they considered inadequate.
The case against
Critics would argue that granting an above-inflation rise, including large premiums on top of a roughly £70,000 starting salary, to a workforce whose recent performance included cancelled services and punctuality of just 57.4 per cent, rewards leverage rather than delivery and leaves taxpayers and passengers to foot the bill. They would contend that yielding to a strike threat sets a troubling precedent, encouraging other unions to use ballots as bargaining weapons and making future disputes harder to resist without matching concessions. On this view, the deal reflects political expediency rather than sound stewardship of public transport funding, particularly given comparable settlements elsewhere, such as the 12 per cent LNER offer over four years, are structured differently and at lower headline cost.
Full account
Andy Burnham has been given a substantially improved pay offer for train drivers on the West Coast Main Line after the threat of strike action forced Avanti West Coast and the Aslef union back to the negotiating table. Drivers on the route, who already start on salaries of around £70,000, have been awarded an above-inflation 3.6 per cent rise, along with time-and-a-half pay for Sunday shifts and a bonus of up to £720 for agreeing to work a fifth day in a week. The settlement covers the busy line linking London Euston with Manchester, and onward services to Birmingham, Glasgow, Liverpool and Blackpool.
The deal followed a period of escalating tension between the union and the operator. Aslef members had previously rejected an earlier pay offer and voted in favour of industrial action, raising the possibility of widespread disruption for passengers. According to correspondence said to have been seen by the Sunday Times, Aslef's council secretary Si Goode told members that the strong ballot result had given the union significant leverage over both Avanti and the government, and that an emergency meeting with rail bosses followed shortly afterwards at which a revised package covering pay, Sunday working and rest-day arrangements was tabled. Goode later described the outcome as delivering on the union's collective aims and delivering meaningful gains on pay and conditions.
Reaction to the settlement has split along political lines. The Conservatives were sharply critical, with shadow transport secretary Richard Holden accusing the government of caving in to union demands and suggesting the deal was designed to spare Burnham political embarrassment rather than represent good value for taxpayers or passengers. The Department for Transport, by contrast, defended the outcome, framing it as part of a broader effort to resolve disputes across the rail network, protect services for passengers and limit the financial cost of strike action. Aslef itself said the agreement, reached with Avanti and signed off by the relevant Department for Transport operator body, had been accepted by its side and represented an enhancement of members' terms and conditions.
The settlement sits against a backdrop of well-documented problems on the Avanti franchise, which cut 38 services a day over the summer and has recorded punctuality of only around 57 per cent over the past year, with roughly one in eighteen scheduled services cancelled, according to official Office of Rail and Road data. It also follows a separate agreement offered to Aslef drivers at LNER worth around 12 per cent over four years alongside changes to working practices, which the union has similarly endorsed and put to its members for a vote. Aslef's financial links to the Labour Party, to which it donated more than £300,000 in 2024 through affiliation and campaign fees, have added a further layer of scrutiny to the negotiations, with critics questioning the closeness of the relationship between the union and the government overseeing the settlement.
Where outlets differ
The Mail account is the more critical of the two, foregrounding Conservative attacks on the deal, Aslef's financial donations to Labour, and Avanti's poor punctuality and cancellation record as context for questioning the settlement's value for taxpayers.
The Independent's account is comparatively neutral in tone, giving more prominence to the Department for Transport's and Aslef's own statements defending the deal, and notes it as the first such settlement approved under the current premiership — a framing not echoed in the Mail's report, which focuses on Burnham personally rather than the office of prime minister.
Only the Mail report details the LNER pay deal and Aslef's political donations; the Independent report does not mention either.
The two accounts differ slightly on how the £720 payment and pay rise figures are sourced, with the Independent explicitly crediting the Sunday Times as the outlet that first reported the terms, while the Mail presents the figures as its own reporting alongside leaked union correspondence.
More coverage
- The Independent — Andy Burnham agrees pay rises for train drivers after threat of strike action
- The Guardian — Train drivers secure 3.6% pay rise after threat of strikes on busy UK routes