South Western Railway workers start four-day strike in weekend of travel chaos
Commuters hoping to take the train to work across the south of England face potential chaos this morning as strikes resume on South Western Railway (SWR) over a long-running conflict over train guards.
SWR, which runs trains out of London Waterloo to Reading, Bristol and Exeter, has cancelled 800 trains a day until the end of Monday after members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) walked out. That consists of roughly half its services.
Read more: South Western Railway to be hit by four days of strikes
RMT has hit the rail franchise with repeated strikes for the past year over the role of guards on its trains. The last one lasted five days in June, when commuters described their journeys as “utter madness” and a “total mess”.
The union said SWR “continues to drag its heels” and “trying to mug off staff” with a policy which the union says would see the role of the guard “butchered completely”.
They said an agreement reached in February in which the train firm pledged that each passenger train “shall operate with a guard with safety critical competencies” has broken down, with the two sides failing to agree on what the competencies are.
The operator has said it is “committed to finding a solution” to the dispute.
Unions ‘left with no choice’
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “Our members have been left with no choice but to go ahead with a further four days of strike action on South Western Railway from Friday.
General Secretary Mick Cash said: Our members are standing united and rock solid on their picket lines again this morning on this first day of the latest phase of strike action in the fight to put safety first on South Western Railway.”
”Despite all our efforts to pin down an agreement that honours promises made by SWR, and which protects the safety critical role of the guard at the platform/train interface, the company have played fast and loose and attempted to kick this fundamental issue into the long grass.
“RMT members have not come this far in the long fight for safety on South Western Railway only to be snubbed when a deal is clearly there to be done. It is now down to the company to get serious and listen to what their own staff are saying.”
“The company continues to refuse to give assurances on the future operational role of the guard fuelling fears amongst our members of a stitch up. That situation has been compounded by an insistence that future operational models will be governed by the protection of company profits and not the safety of the travelling public.”
He added: “We have spent most of this year trying to negotiate a conclusion to this dispute.
Rail franchise ‘extremely disappointed’
A spokesperson for SWR said: “It’s extremely disappointing that despite having a date in the diary for what we hoped would be constructive talks held in good faith, the RMT union has somewhat cynically decided to call further disruptive strike action, inflicting misery on our customers and colleagues.
“Only last week, we met with union representatives for the fourth day of talks in the last ten days and were due to meet the general secretary of the RMT the very day before these strikes have now been announced for.”
Read more: Taxpayer to foot £32m bill of South Western Railway strikes, union claims
A reduced service will be running on Friday, Saturday and Monday but SWR is still planning its trains service for the Sunday.
Some routes will not have a train service or a replacement bus service.
All images: Getty