Rail strikes hit profits for Birmingham's hospitality firms

Hospitality firms in Birmingham say they are losing business from the ongoing rail strikes and having to cut staff hours.

RMT rail workers union members walk out on Friday and Saturday, following a strike by the train drivers' union, Aslef on Thursday.

Bars in the city said they had seen a large number of cancellations due to the industrial action.

One firm said its takings were down by more than 50% over Christmas.

"We went from what was meant to be our biggest taking week at the end December, meant to take £27,000, and we ended up taking about £12,000," Grace O'Reilly, from the Head of Steam, said.

"We didn't think it would be that big of a deal, but it was massively impacted by the rail strikes."

Guy Markewski, deputy manager at The Stable, near Birmingham New Street station, said staff saw about 200 cancellations over three weeks in December due to the strikes.

"It becomes harder for us to do our job as it becomes harder to predict what we're going to do - so we can't rota the staff properly, can't order stock properly, so [it] has a massive ripple effect," he said.

The Theatrix rooftop bar relies on passers-by coming in, but general manager Jodie Barnett said staff had seen a large drop in footfall in the city centre.

"It's hard, difficult to staff, to balance between what to expect and what not to expect," she said.

"We are tightening the belt on everything down to toilet rolls, cleaners, what hours we are doing, what hours we're opening."

UK Hospitality has warned of a tough first quarter of the year for the hospitality industry, with the ongoing cost of living crisis combining with further strike action.

While the bar managers said they understood or supported the unions in their industrial action, they felt they were suffering from it.

"Surely there must be a different avenue they can go down, because they are affecting people and not getting the answers they want," Mr Markewski said.

Ms Barnett added: "There has to come a point where we've got to think about the bigger economy because it's detrimental to keeping the economy growing."

Mick Lynch, boss of the RMT union previously apologised for the action "dragging on" but accused ministers of "doing nothing" about the dispute.

The government says it is doing all it can to mitigate the impact of strikes.

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