Strike brings traffic misery.

Byline: By Peter Young

More action is on the agenda

Passengers fa-ced another day of strike misery today as Metro bosses revealed the present industrial action has cost the railway pounds 300,000.

The Metro was at a standstill today as workers staged their third 24-hour strike this year in a bitter dispute over pay and conditions.

There is no sign of a breakthrough and the threat of further action is looming.

Traffic into Newcastle was heavier than usual this morning as many commuters took to their cars while others caught buses to get to work

Nexus, which runs the Metro, said services will be back to normal tomorrow morning following four days of chaos caused by the latest action.

A spokesman said the cost of the weekend stoppages is estimated at pounds 200,000 while a 24-hour strike in January cost around pounds 100,000.

"Obviously, the impact on the business is enormous," he said. "There is also the impact of turning people away from public transport and into their cars."

The Metro unions will now meet in the next few days to decide what to do next and further industrial action will be on the agenda.

Around 450 workers from two unions, the Rail Maritime and Transport and Amicus, are involved in the stoppage.

Stan Herschel, North East organiser of the RMT, said there will be a meeting of the staff side of the joint negotiating committee this week. However, the threat of a strike disrupting Tyneside's St Patrick's Day party on March 17, which Nexus is helping promote, appears to have been lifted.

"The meeting will take three or four days to sort out and we then need to give the management eight days' notice of any further action so I don't think there will be a strike on St Patrick's Day," said Mr Herschel.

"Certainly, further strike action will be on the agenda unless the management pick up the phone and tell us they want to start talking."

Trains will be at a standstill all day today and normal services will resume at around 6am tomorrow.

Nexus managers say their offer of a 2.5% pay rise and a reduction in the working week from 37 to 36 hours worth a total of 5.2% remains on the table.

"Our position has not changed," said a spokesman. "The offer is still there and we hope it will be discussed.

"If the unions want to talk about it, then we'll talk about it, but the ball is in their court. They went on strike, they have inconvenienced a lot of people and have cost us a lot of money.

"If the JNC wishes to get in touch with us, that is the recognised bargaining procedure."

The unions are after an above inflation pay rise and a 35-hour week and say the offer was rejected because of the strings attached which would erode working conditions.