STRIKING FOR GUARDS

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2018 :: RMTnews 6 RMT members on Great Anglia and South Western Railway took 24-hour strike action late last month against the extension of driver-only operation on the franchises. As well as removing Guards, South Western Railway also plans to de-staff two thirds of its 210 stations at a time of heightened security and crime alert. RMT is warning that removing the guard from trains which will then also travel through 141 unstaffed stations will result in a toxic mix of dangers where passengers and the train driver are more exposed to crime and anti - social behavior, while disabled and older passengers will not be able to get on and off the train when they wish to. Greater Anglia has also admitted in its official ‘Disabled Peoples Protection policy’ document that older and disabled passengers are worse off on driver-only trains than they when a conductor is on board. It warns that: “The majority of our trains on the commuter services are operated without any customer service staff on board and are known as driver- only operated services. This means that you will generally not find staff available to help you once you are on board the train”. Greater Anglia bosses Abellio has also admitted that it did a deal to keep the Guard on trains on their Scottish franchise because “the Scottish government, as franchise commissioning authority, asked Abellio to apply a different approach for Scotrail”. RMT has predicted that over a million more trains a year will run without guards on the five companies RMT is currently in dispute with, Greater Anglia Railway, Merseyrail, Northern Rail, Southern Rail and South Western Railway. Figures passed to RMT show that on Southern Railway alone, where driver only operation is being rolled out, over 15,000 trains a year are already running fully or partly without a second person and if the same ratio was applied to South Western Railway that would be the equivalent of 32,000 trains a year across that single franchise alone. Under the Northern Rail Franchise agreement up to 50 per cent of services must be able to run without a guard, the equivalent of 457,000 trains a year, and it is planned that all of Merseyrail’s 218,000 trains will run without a guard. The union has calculated that if the 50 per cent of services without a guard is eventually also applied to South Western and Southern well over a million more trains in total a year will be run without a guard. That figure will also rise even higher if the extension of driver-only trains on Greater Anglia takes place. RMT general secretary Mick Cash warned that once the private rail companies are allowed to force the driver to leave without a second person then the all the evidence points to this method of operation becoming the norm and not the exception. “The government and the train companies should be hanging their heads in shame that their real plans have now been rumbled and they must be forced to halt and reverse the dash to DOO on our railways,” he said. STRIKING FOR GUARDS Greater Anglia bosses Abellio admit that it kept the Guard on it’s Scotrail trains because of Scottish government pressure