No penalty fares on Silverlink from Friday as revenue staff take action

Publication Date: June 26 2006

SILVERLINK REVENUE protection staff will refuse to issue penalty fares from a minute after midnight on June 30 after the company failed to table a suitable offer for the re-introduction of the penalty-fares system, Britain’s biggest rail union announced today.

In a ballot of the 70-plus RMT members involved, 39 voted in favour of action short of strike and not one voted against.

"The extraordinary ballot result returned by our members underlines the anger that they feel at Silverlink's attempts to re-impose a penalty fares system that puts them at risk and hits their earnings," RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

"If the company really believed it could get away with that without offering a penny piece in return, our members have told them in no uncertain terms that they were wrong.

"Silverlink now have a simple choice: they can either get back round the table and negotiate sensibly, or they can issue their penalty fares themselves - because our members certainly won't be doing it.

"We are happy to talk to the company, but Silverlink have to get real and put a sensible offer on the table and address our safety concerns," Bob Crow said.