Northern Ireland buses and trains to halt in 24-hour December strike

Northern Ireland's bus and rail services could be brought to a standstill for a day due to a 24-hour strike in the run up to Christmas, unions have said.

The strike has been called from Friday, 1 December at 00:01 GMT.

Unite, GMB and SIPTU unions voted to in favour of the strike over a possible pay-freeze for Translink workers.

One union leader said members had no alternative but to strike due to attempts to "instigate a pay freeze".

Translink said it did not receive a budget for a pay offer from the Department for Infrastructure and as such cannot make a pay offer at this time.

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite the union, called on Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris to "properly fund public transport in order to avoid what will be debilitating and disruptive strikes".

All three public transport unions said members have also agreed to industrial action short of strike.

Albert Hewitt, Unite's regional officer for Translink, said this is the first of a series of planned strikes over the coming weeks.

"Unless management returns to the negotiating table with an offer of a real-terms pay increase, our members will be left with no alternative but to escalate industrial action to defend their incomes," he added.

Peter Macklin, GMB's regional organiser, said unions will meet in the coming days "to agree a schedule and strategy for strike action to secure an improvement to members' pay".

Niall McNally, SIPTU senior organiser, added that the union recognises the disruption a public transport strike will cause but added members cannot accept a pay-freeze in the current cost-of-living crisis.

In a statement, Translink said: "Ultimately this issue needs to be resolved for many public sector workers at the NI Executive level."

It added that it "understood and recogised" to concerns that led to the strike but urged workers "not to rake action which could further exacerbate the financial pressures on Translink, impact on school children and damage the livelihoods of many businesses in the retail and hospitality sectors who depend on the busy Christmas period".

"We remain committed to working with our colleagues in the trade unions to avoid disrupting services that so many of our passengers rely on."

The industrial action by public transport workers is the latest in a number of strikes to hit public services in Northern Ireland.

At the start of November school support staff across four unions walked out in strike over failure to reform their pay and cuts to the education budget.

The 48-hour strike caused the closure of four special schools and unions said it would be one of the biggest strikes among non-teaching unions in years.