Staff at three train companies are to go on strike in the week between Christmas and New Year, along with overtime bans on several other train companies.
The TSSA union says that staff at CrossCountry, Great Western Railway (GWR) and West Midlands Trains will strike, with train companies warning that they will have to cut services, or not run them at all during the rail strike.
In addition, the strike action on West Midlands Trains will affect services on London Northwestern Railway, which will not run any trains out of Euston station on 28th and 29th December.
Strike action:
- CrossCountry – 9pm Boxing Day (26 December) to 9pm 27 December
- GWR – Wednesday 28 December noon to noon on Thursday 29 December
- West Midlands Trains – Wednesday 28 December noon to noon on Thursday 29 December
Action short of strike is also taking place over this period at Avanti, GWR, Greater Anglia, GTR, LNER, Northern, Southeastern, South Western Railway, TransPennine Express, West Midlands Trains.
These latest strike announcements come after the RMT and Aslef announced strikes that will cripple the rail network for most of the first week in January.
The TSSA says that its action has caused West Midlands Trains to advise passengers that services will not be running on both parts of the franchise – both West Midlands Railway and London Northwestern Railway services.
Nadine Rae, TSSA Organising Director, said: “Our members at CrossCountry, GWR and WMT are fed up with being taken for granted. The recent offer made by employers didn’t even cover huge numbers of workers at these – and other – train companies
TSSA members at West Midlands Trains include Control staff, Duty Train Crew Managers, Driver Managers, Senior Conductor Managers (on-board staff responsible for guards), station management and duty station management.
TSSA members in GWR include staff in Control, Train Planning, Ticket offices and other stations roles, Revenue Protection, Admin and Clerical grades, Driver Managers, Engineering Managers, Guards Managers, On Board Services Managers, Revenue Protection Managers and a variety of other Management grades including those in Swindon HQ.
Talks between TSSA and the Rail Delivery Group (acting on behalf of train operators) have stalled after TSSA rejected an offer which didn’t cover all staff and came with conditions that it said was unacceptable. On pay and job security, the offer was significantly less than the deal struck between TSSA and Network Rail earlier in December.
All the money these train people and others are losing, if they get the pay increase they want (which I doubt the will get) if they do get some increase it will take them years to make up the lost money, there is only two losers when people strike, the workers and the general public, that goes for all those on strike, they will soon complain if they lose there jobs and replaced with cheaper workers
It isn’t all about money, it’s also about the unacceptable terms and conditions they want to impose. Like driver only operation on ALL trains, imagine that London to Edinburgh? What happens when 80 year old Doris needs urgent on board help? What’s the driver going to do? Stop the train half way through the journey? I don’t think so. Then there’s the issue of Sunday working, making it part of the working week but without paying the extra they have to pay now. I don’t think so. There’s a whole host of other terms. These things aren’t getting media attention. All that’s being released to the public is pay. Its wrong
The issues you talk about have been in the news media – a heck of a lot as it happens.