Rail strike rolls on over Horton's bizarre offer

stoppage due to end at noon today will not have been amused.

Firstly Railtrack claimed to have improved its interim offer from 3.2%

to 4.7% by offering to consolidate half of the 6% proposed improvement

in basic rates as detailed in yesterday's Herald. This would appear to

take it to just 1% below the 5.7% ''offer that never was'' withdrawn

under Government pressure two months ago.

The RMT union maintained it had been unaware of such an improvement,

apparently floated via Acas last week, but rejected it any way as being

still below the earlier 5.7% offer. However if Railtrack was now

prepared to put in writing that basic rates could be improved by 4.7%

that might be worth discussing.

The Railtrack chairman, Mr Bob Horton, made a bizarre offer to pay the

difference between his salary (#120,000 for a three-day-week) and RMT

general secretary Mr Jimmy Knapp's (#46,000) to charity if that would

help resolve the dispute. Not surprisingly it was shot down by Mr Knapp

as being ''unhelpful'', and denounced as a stunt by Labour.

Mr Knapp meanwhile jetted back from Geneva before the start of the

International Transport Workers Federation congress he was due to

attend, to resume control of the dispute.

Last night he was contemplating legal action against certain tabloid

newspapers who accused him of ''freeloading'' abroad, while his members

were on strike and the travelling public faced massive disruption.

The British Rail chairman, Sir Bob Reid, called on the RMT union to

re-ballot its 6600 signalling members and suspend further strike action

in the rail dispute until the result of such a ballot was known, knowing

full well that there is little chance of this happening.

Today the RMT is due to release the results of a ballot of some 550

RMT signal box supervisors and managers, whose entry into strike action

planned for Friday of next week and the following Monday and Tuesday,

could prove crucial.

In a letter to Mr Knapp, Sir Bob said extending the industrial action

further would be ''hugely destructive''.

In a letter to the Railtrack chairman, Sir Bob said that he wanted him

to know ''of my serious concern at yesterday's breakdown in your

negotiations with the RMT''.

He said the continuing disruption was ''causing intolerable

inconvenience to all who use the railway''.

He added: ''We cannot expect to keep passengers or freight customers

if we treat them like this. The disruption has seriously damaged our

business and the only winners in that are our competitors --

particularly on the roads.''

Labour transport spokesman Brian Wilson said last night: ''The last

thing we need at this stage is an empty stunt from Mr Horton, whose

generosity is cushioned by the #1.25m pay-off which he received from BP.

Mr Alan Pottage, the RMT's national executive member for Scotland said

the strike yesterday had virtually 100% support. ''The mood of our

membership in Scotland is getting more and more determined,'' he said.

''Robert Horton's new offer, as he calls it, was made to the press not

to us. It is just another of their strange little ploys to try and break

the strike.''

The Scottish Trades Union Congress was yesterday challenged to

organise a 24-hour general strike in support of the rail signal workers.

The call came from Scottish Militant Labour which claimed victory for

the striking signal staff was vital to protect low-paid workers against

a further round of ''union bashing'' by the Government.

The Scottish TUC is to help distribute 10,000 leaflets seeking

continued public support for signalling staff, because RMT staff fear

they could be sacked if they hand out the leaflets themselves. The

leaflet gives pay and productivity figures and adds: ''Strike action has

been increased because the signal staff have been left with absolutely

no alternative, with the Government sitting on top of Railtrack to make

sure that no serious negotiations take place.''