Rail unions

General secretary of the TSSA white collar rail union Manuel Cortes has said he is hopeful of a future merger with the RMT rail union, despite formal talks having ended.

The RMT is to put a TSSA proposal to its conference later this month to create a formal federation that would also be open to similar-sized transport unions.

Cortes said he wanted to formalise all the good work jointly undertaken over the past few years.

He told the Morning Star newspaper: “The more we work together the more we are able to show that, by pooling resources, we can deliver a better deal for both sets of members and the more likely a merger with RMT and other similar-sized unions could become a reality.”