London’s mayor has accused the government of “inciting” one of next week’s rail strikes, as more workers are set to be balloted for industrial action in growing disputes over pay and jobs.

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A Rail Delivery Group, an industry membership body, as criticised the strike action confirmed today.

A spokesperson said: “No one wins in the event of a strike. The action next week will affect the millions of people who use the train each day, including key workers, students with exams, those who cannot work from home, holidaymakers and people attending important business and leisure events.”

They added: “Working with Network Rail, our plan is to keep as many services running as possible, but significant disruption will be inevitable and some parts of the network will not have a service, so passengers should plan their journeys carefully and check their train times.”

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress has been met with applause and cheers as she gave a speech to the crowd in Parliament Square.

She said: “I have seen the Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has threatened rail workers that they will strike themselves out of a job.

“Well you are wrong Mr Shapps: if you keep stirring, come the next election, you will be out of a job.”

Next week’s rail strikes could devastate the UK’s post-Covid recovery and cost key industries over a billion pounds, the government has been told.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of industry group UK Hospitality, warned tourism and leisure businesses were already fragile after pandemic lockdowns and would take a “big hit”.

“At the best, we think it’s going to take a hit to hospitality revenues of over half a billion pounds,” she told Times Radio.

“But that presupposes that many people will travel on those shoulder days when the trains and the Tubes will still be disrupted - it could be more significant than that.

“And if you look across the whole tourism, and leisure and theatre industries as a whole, you are definitely looking at an economic hit of over a billion pounds.”

After members of the RMT rail union voted 8:1 in favour of strike action over jobs, pay and conditions, their union has called nationwide rail strikes for three dates in late June.

Simon Calder has all the details, including when they start and what lines they are due to affect:

Network Rail has responded to news of the strike confirmation.

“Yet again the RMT union are dismissing talks before we’ve even finished, with more planned for tomorrow,” a spokesperson said on Saturday.

“We’re serious about trying to find a solution and work out a compromise that gives our people a decent pay rise, but it has to be affordable for taxpayers and farepayers.

“Union demands have so far been unobtainable, and the union seems completely focussed on ‘take’, with very little ‘give’.

“It makes negotiating extremely challenging, but we will continue to try and find a way through to try and avert this needless and damaging strike.”

The shadow employment rights secretary has said it is “over to you Grant Shapps” after the train strikes were confirmed:

Next week’s rail and Tube strikes will go ahead after talks failed to resolve a row over pay, jobs and conditions, the RMT union announced.

During the planned nationwide rail strikes for three dates in late June, only 22 per cent of passenger train services will run – most of them on key links to and from London.

According to the RMT, it is “the biggest dispute on the network since 1989” and will involve 40,000 workers.

A senior rail source said the plan was to run “as decent a rail service as we can”.

Only around half of Britain’s rail network will be open on strike days, from around 7.30am until 6.30pm.

At Network Rail, the infrastructure provider, the most critical roles in the day-to-day running of the railway are 5,000 signallers.

Management and other staff are expected to cover about half the network for about 11 hours per day. Many lines will see no trains.

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Business minister Paul Scully earlier pleaded with rail workers planning to strike next week to “get round the table” for negotiations.