National Highways workers are set to go on 12 days of strikes over December and January to coincide with the rail strikes, in a walkout over pay, redundancy terms, pensions and job security.
Several hundred PCS union members are expected to join the walkout including traffic officers on the road and from regional operation centres (ROCs), raising safety concerns after reports that National Highways is already short-staffed in these crucial areas.
Highways understands that National Highways will not close hard shoulders on all lane running smart motorways during the industrial action despite the possibility that the staff shortages could impact the ability to react to crashes.
A PSC spokesman told Highways that 'if managers are concerned the ROCs won't be sufficiently staffed, then they should close the hard shoulder'.
National Highways said it has mitigation measures in place including potentially moving workers across ROCs to help manage call handling and the setting of signs and signals.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: 'We know our members’ action could inconvenience travellers who plan to visit their relatives over the festive period, but our members have been placed in this situation by a government that won’t listen to its own workforce.
'With the serious cost-of-living crisis they deserve to be paid properly for the important work they do, keeping our roads running safe and free. The government is in the driving seat here – it’s in a position to stop these strikes by putting money on the table.'
In National Highways, 74% of PCS members voted for strike action on a nearly 59% turnout, above the required legal threshold of 50%.
Duncan Smith, executive director of operations at National Highways, said: 'We’re aware of today’s strike action announced by PCS whose membership forms a small part of our overall workforce. We’ve reviewed the impact this may have and are confident we have well-rehearsed resilience plans in place to ensure the continued safe operation of our network. These can include sharing operational tasks between regions and lifting some roadworks.
'Millions of people rely on our roads and there is a possibility that they may be busier than usual on strike days, particularly when they correspond with industrial action on other transport modes, so we’d urge drivers to take extra care.'
Full list of strike days:
National
All traffic officer service employees at all National Highways workplaces on 3 and 4 January 2023.
Northwest, Yorkshire and Humber and North East
All traffic officer service employees on 16 and 17 December 2022.
London and South East
All traffic officer service employees on 22, 23, 24 and 25 December 2022.
West Midlands and South West
All traffic officer service employees on 30 and 31 December 2022.
East Midlands and Eastern
All traffic officer service employees on 6 and 7 January 2023.
Rail
The rail strikes are planned on 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17 December and 3, 4, 6 and 7 January.
