ANY threats to railway workers’ pension schemes will be met by national strike action, rail union leader Mick Cash warned today.

RMT general secretary Mr Cash said that workers were “deadly serious” about challenging any threat to their pension schemes.

Mr Cash’s intervention came as the Department for Transport (DfT) announced a ban on Stagecoach bidding on rail franchises this year.

Stagecoach, which is a partner of Virgin Trains, has refused to pay a £6 billion deficit in the Railways Pension Scheme.

The DfT say that Stagecoach must help fill the gap in the funding, but the company claim that the deficit is the government’s responsibility.

Mr Cash said: “No-one should be under any illusions. 

“The pension rights of RMT members are not there to be used as bargaining chips in a row between the train companies and the government. 

“We will coordinate any response across the country.

“This situation is deadly serious and we are preparing to fight if need be and the government and the train companies should wake up to that fact.

“We are demanding immediate assurances that the pension rights of our members will not be threatened in any way, shape or form as the broken franchising system on Britain’s railways teeters on the brink of collapse.

“We are ready to take the necessary action and will not tolerate RMT members, their jobs, their pay and their pensions, being seen as collateral damage as Chris Grayling presides over this growing chaos.”