RMT has announced that a further 48 hours of strike action will take place on South Western Railway.
The strike action will take place on Friday 5th and Saturday 6th October.
Again, the strike is due to the ongoing dispute over the role of guards on trains.
RMT members on South Western Railway working as Commercial Guards, Guards and Train Drivers are instructed to not to book on for any shifts that commence between:-
- 0001 Hours on Friday 5th October 2018 and 2359 Hours on Saturday 6th October 2018
What did the officials say?
RMT General Secretary, Mick Cash said:
“The company has continued to fail to provide any offer that comes close to resolving this dispute and their latest attempts at delaying talks has not gone unnoticed.
“Before the result of the re-ballot I sent a letter to the company on the 30th August 2018 asking them to make the necessary arrangements for a meeting to take place. However, I never received a response from the company and they have made no attempt at trying to resolve this dispute since. It would appear that once again the company were riding their luck in the desperate hope that we would not be successful in another re-ballot. However, our members have stood rock solid and it's down to the company to get out the bunker and get serious talks underway.
“There's a simple solution to this dispute and it means SWR stop playing with words and negotiate the guard guarantee that reflects the best safety practice elsewhere in the industry.
“That is the package we have successfully negotiated in both Wales and Scotland and on a number of English franchises. It defies belief that we are being denied the same positive outcome on the South Western Railway routes.”
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I think that South Western Railway along with Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway (Thameslink & Southern) are becoming the worst train operator in England. Apart from other train operators that haven’t had strikes except for Greater Anglia, TransPennine Express and previously Virgin Trains East Coast before London North Eastern Railway took over have had couple strikes in resent years.