Section:GDN 1N PaGe:21 Edition Date:190830 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/8/2019 19:37 cYanmaGentaYellowb
Friday 30 Aug ust 2019 The Guardian •
21Gwyn Topham
Transport correspondentFour days of strikes which start today
are d ue to bring disruption and delays
for thousands of commuters on one of
Britain’s busiest train services, South
Western Railway.
More than 40% of services on the
network will not run until Monday ,
and only half of all scheduled trains
will run at the weekend , when engi-
neering works will also aff ect some
services.
South Western Railway serves an
average of 600,000 passenger jour-
neys daily on lines between London
Waterloo and regions including Sur-
rey and Hampshire.
The strike by members of the RMT
union is the latest in a long-running
dispute over the future roles and
responsibilities of train guards.
South Western said it had off ered to
keep a guard on every train “as part of a
framework agreement”, but it wanted
“to move the conversation on to how
we operate our new trains and takeadvantage of the new technology
onboard to benefi t our customers”.
It said the remaining services were
likely be busier than usual during the
strike. Weekend engineering works
will also mean fewer trains in south-
west London on Sunday.
The RMT has accused the fi rm of
“trying to mug off staff ” by failing to
give fi rm assurances over guards dur-
ing talks. It said clauses in the franchise
contract that protects South Western
in the event of strikes could mean the
operator had received up to £32m from
the taxpayer.
According to filings from First
Group, which runs South Western in
conjunction with MTR, negotiations
with the Department for Transport
have progressed to recover “strike
amelioration”, although the govern-
ment has not confi rmed the amounts,
citing commercial confi dentiality.
The RMT said its £32m estimate was
the equivalent of a 3.4% fare cut for
South Western passengers. The g en-
eral secretary, Mick Cash, who was
re-elected this week for a fi ve-year
term, said: “ South Western don’t lose a
penny from strikes and therefore have
little incentive to negotiate seriously.”Action over guards
means four days of
delays for South
Western rail users
40%
The proportion of South Western
Railway services that will not run
until Monday because of the strikeRELEASED BY "What's News" vk.com/wsnws TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws