The industrial action today (Tuesday, June 21) is the latest in a line of strikes in the ongoing dispute between Govia Thameslink Railway and the union RMT over the future role of conductors.
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After a meeting of the Scottish Government’s resilience committee, ministers said ScotRail was expected to be able to run around 70 per cent of services, but there would be an inevitable impact on passengers.
The RMT union however maintains that passenger safety is only guaranteed by the presence of guards who have extensive safety training, and accused ScotRail of “sabotaging” negotiations. We are delivering record-breaking investment in Scotland’s railways, supporting new and better services, new routes and stations, and over 13,000 jobs both directly in the rail industry and through the supply chains.
The union is concerned at plans to have more trains operated only by drivers.
‘I’m not sure how they have managed to get away with it and justify the amount of train fare when people are trying to get to work’.
“We plan to run around 60% of our normal train service today”.
“That can only be because they have a wider agenda to force confrontation and chaos on these routes as part of some scam to blame the staff, bulldoze through cuts to jobs and safety and break the unions”. However, this is not always the case and could mean people miss their train or cause delays to other passengers.
Services have been disrupted for weeks because of industrial action and a high level of staff sickness.
This will have a significant effect on Southern services, with no service on many routes.
“They wanted us to call off the strikes and wait and see what happens when they make their decision on the guards in september”.
Operator Govia Thameslink (GTR) earlier said the strikes were “completely unnecessary” and called on RMT members to “think again and put passengers first”. He said: “If, God forbid, there was a collision or a derailment there would be no-one who is safety trained in order to evacuate the passengers safely”.
RMT bosses say they have no other option but to strike to protect their members from changes at the network.
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“This simply can not continue indefinitely, and I therefore urge the management of Southern to do whatever is necessary to meet with the RMT, the conductors’ trades union, and resolve their differences”.
