17 August 2018
RMT Press Office:
RMT confirms next phase of strike action on South Western Railway goes ahead tomorrow as company make a mockery of talks process.
RAIL UNION RMT has confirmed that the next round of strike action on South Western Railway goes ahead from tomorrow after the company made a mockery of agreed talks this week and sabotaged a process that could have reached agreement.
As a result of the company attitude RMT members are instructed not to book on for any shifts that commence between:-
• 0001 Hours and 2359 Hours on Saturday 18th August 2018
• 0001 Hours on Friday 31st August 2018 and 2359 Hours on Saturday 1st September 2018
• 0001 Hours and 2359 Hours on Sunday 2nd September 2018
• 0001 Hours and 2359 Hours on Saturday 8th September 2018
• 0001 Hours and 2359 Hours on Saturday 15th September 2018
RMT has accused the company of sending a negotiating team into the talks with no authority and no support from their paymasters in Hong Kong and Aberdeen to reach a settlement. As a result serious union proposals addressing disruption of service have been kicked back in our face with RMT accusing those responsible for stringing the negotiating team along and having no intention of reaching agreement.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said;
“RMT is angry and frustrated that the company’s cavalier and contemptuous approach to talks leaves us no option but to continue our programme of industrial action. We know that passengers will share that anger.
“This week SWR have benefitted from a fares windfall that will pump up their profits. They have plenty of money to employ guards on their trains and to sign off the guard guarantee the union has achieved elsewhere.
“South Western Railway seem to think they can treat the union and their staff with utter contempt. They need to change that attitude, get serious and put a team in place that can talk with us with authority on the safety, security and access issues at the heart of this dispute.”
Ends.
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