Two years of Southern strikes…
The initial strikes on Southern crippled services, with hundreds of trains cancelled each day.
Chichester became the end of the line, with no Southern services running further west. The station is within walking distance from several educational sites, so students crammed into the sole evening peak Great Western threecar diesel multiple unit heading for Southampton became a familiar sight.
Initially, the dispute was a local issue over working arrangements. Southern proposed to move conductors to a revised role, with the driver taking over operation of the doors. There was also to be a small increase in the number of services that could run without a second member of staff - this was to happen under specific circumstances, such as a crew member falling ill or being delayed on an earlier service.
The RMT protested about an extension of working arrangements that had been in use, with union consent, on Southern suburban trains and Thameslink routes for 30 years.
When Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) imposed the new role of On Board Supervisor from January 2017, all but one of the 350 conductors involved chose to sign the new contracts. The alternative was to forfeit their jobs.
Drivers in the ASLEF union also held six days of strikes and a disruptive overtime ban over the same issue, but eventually reached a deal with the company that included a 28% pay rise over four years.
The RMT has subsequently launched similar disputes on four other operators: Merseyrail, Northern, South Western Railway and Greater Anglia. The union stated it was a wider fight about passenger safety and accessibility.
A Brighton-based social media campaign, Association of British Commuters (ABC), was formed in response to poor performance. It attempted to take the Department for Transport to the High Court over its management of the GTR franchise.
ABC’s Emily Yates believes the campaign is still only just starting and is moving towards a national, rather than local, agenda.
“The running of trains without a second member of staff, especially in rural areas, is a breach of the Equality Act 2010,” she claimed. “It is a rolling back of disabled access.”
A DfT spokesman responded: “It is nonsense to suggest the Government’s plans breach the Equality Act. A judge rejected similar claims of disability discrimination in June 2017.”
Yates added: “This is not just an industrial relations problem - it is a problem for passengers, particularly older, vulnerable and disabled passengers. We are here for the long term. What we have achieved so far is just the beginning.
“We agree with the RMT’s principle of demanding a guaranteed second member of staff on every train. But we are a completely independent volunteer organisation, and our action was never explicitly about Driver Only Operation. We do not like that the Government has decided to go down the road of making some people book travel in advance, whereas younger, fitter people can just turn up and get on a train.”
Charles Horton, chief executive of Govia Thameslink Railway,
countered: “We are seeing the benefits of our On Board Supervisors. The change has allowed us to reduce the number of trains that have been cancelled when there isn’t a second member of staff available.
“I think the continuation of action by the RMT is highly regrettable. It is pointless to carry on - it is so unnecessary. On a strike day now, 70% of staff affected by the dispute are coming to work. Only a handful of services are being cancelled.
“We have proven the new way of working is delivering better benefits for customers, and customers recognise that.”
The RMT claimed the Government was “ignoring” the long-running dispute, saying it was “disgraceful” that joint talks had not been held between the unions, rail companies and Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling.
The DfT countered that 25 days of talks have been held on Southern, and that four formal offers of a deal had all been rejected without RMT members being offered a ballot.
A DfT spokesman said: “Continuing industrial action is pointless, and throughout the dispute the RMT have tried to cause the greatest disruption to passengers.”
The DfT also commented that recent strike mandates on Greater Anglia and SWR were weaker than last year.
On GA, it said the ‘yes’ vote for strike action fell from 81% in September 2017 to 67% in March 2018, on a reduced turnout.
On SWR the ‘yes’ vote fell from 63% in September 2017 to 46% in March 2018, with turnout falling from 77% to 63%.