00:00Our members are asking for a fair share of the success that we've already delivered for London Underground.
00:06These are the people that kept the system running through Covid and since then, as you just alluded to,
00:10we've got the passenger numbers back to where they were before Covid.
00:14We've done that with 2,000 fewer staff than we had before Covid.
00:18The Evening Standard has worked out that your members enjoyed an 8.4% pay rise in 2022, 6.6% in 2023, 4.6% last year.
00:26Your 3.4% is on the table this year. That's a 25% increase since Covid, 25%.
00:33Mr Wood, surely that is enough?
00:36Well, what I'd point out is that the retail price index in that time rose significantly faster than that.
00:43So actually, over that period, our members have experienced a real terms pay cut.
00:47Are you honestly expecting my listeners to listen to you putting the case for workers who've had a 25% pay increase since 2020,
00:55demanding more money?
00:59Well, I repeat the point. That pay rise is below the rate of inflation over the same time.
01:03The average salary of an RMT train driver, he or she, earns north of £65,000 per annum for a 32-hour week.
01:11Surely that's enough, Mr Wood.
01:13A train driver is a skilled job and it's something that people train a long time to do.
01:17It's massively responsible and I think that what we're asking for,
01:20which is for some recognition of the long-term effects of shift work
01:24and to make good on previous promises given, is not unreasonable.
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