
7 November 2017
RMT Press Office:
RMT hits back at Chris Grayling for backing profiteering overseas rail companies against safety-critical guards in tonight's Evening Standard.
RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:
“These strikes are about rail safety pure and simple. Only this week at the Wimbledon derailment it was the guard on that train who safely evacuated 300 passengers in an emergency situation. Those are the same guards that South Western Railway used to call legends and who they now want to throw off their trains.
“All of these disputes have a common theme and that is a drive by foreign-owned rail companies to axe guards on London commuter trains in order to put private profit before public safety.
“It is sickening that Chris Grayling and this Tory Government are prepared to sit back and cheer on overseas operators who are robbing Londoner's blind to subsidise transport services in Paris, Amsterdam and Hong Kong.
“RMT’s fight to keep the guards is about protecting the safety, security and access to rail services of the travelling public against an all-out drive to ramp up profits which are then shipped across the Channel.
“The only person politicising this rail safety issue is Chris Grayling himself who is stopping the London commuter rail companies from negotiating deals like the ones we have successfully struck in Wales and Scotland that guarantee a guard on the trains. If it's good enough for Scotland and Wales it's good enough for London.”
ENDS
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Tagged with: chris grayling, evening standard, doo, dco, driver only operation, guards, conductors, strike action, northern, northern rail, arriva, gtr, southern, southern rail, abellio, greater anglia, merseyrail, south western railway, swr
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