Another month of rail strife
WEEKLY strikes on the Northern Rail network will continue through November as part of the longrunning dispute over guards on trains.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union will walk out for 24 hours on three consecutive Saturdays from October 27.
The workers are already to strike this Saturday,the 32nd day of industrial action to date.
The two sides are blaming each other for talks breaking down.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “RMT continues to make every effort to get serious and meaningful talks going with Northern but the company is not interested.
“German-owned Northern Rail want to run nearly half a million trains a year without a safetycritical guard on board in a move that would wreck both safety and access to services, and they should listen to their frontline staff and pull back from that plan immediately.
Richard Allan, Northern’s deputy managing director, said: “RMT’s latest announcement will mean that Northern’s customers have had to endure strikes every Saturday in September, October and now into November – this is incredibly frustrating and disappointing and is a further blow for our regional economy.
“The RMT changed its mind about what it would discuss between the first and second meetings at Acas, making it impossible to progress.
“We have offered to explore all options, including those RMT has agreed with other train operators, but they refuse to discuss these with Northern for reasons only known to them.
“We urge the RMT to suspend strikes, and get back round the table to talk about the options they agreed to discuss in the first meeting at Acas.”