Southern Rail strikes: Delays and cancellations cause fresh misery for train passengers

Southern: An overtime ban is continuing to cause disruption
Jeremy Selwyn
Dick Murray21 December 2016

Southern Railway passengers faced continued disruption on Wednesday as the ongoing overtime ban by train drivers caused delays and cancellations.

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union at Southern had completed a 48-hour stoppage on Tuesday in the long-running row over the role of conductors.

The next full strikes by RMT train guards will take place from Saturday December 31 until Monday January 2. The next walkouts by drivers start from Monday January 9 until Saturday January 14.

Southern said today: “In addition to strike days, services on all routes will be severely disrupted because of the Aslef union’s refusal to allow drivers to work overtime.”

The nine-month dispute is over the implementation of more driver-only operated (DOO) trains, with the driver taking over operation of the train doors.

The unions say this is unsafe — a claim robustly denied by rail chiefs. DOO is used widely across other parts of the UK network.

There was good news for air travellers, as baggage handlers called off their planned strikes for Friday and Christmas Eve.

A new pay deal was thrashed out late last night at the Acas conciliation service for 1,500 baggage handlers, check-in staff and cargo crew employed by Swissport at 18 airports around the UK, including Heathrow and Gatwick.

An Acas spokesman said: “The company has made a revised pay offer that the Unite union will strongly recommend to their members.

“The planned industrial action on December 23 and 24 has been suspended.”

But British Airways passengers planning to travel on Christmas Day and Boxing Day were still facing the threat of strike action by some cabin crew.

Talks continued for the third successive day at Acas today over their dispute but there was little progress.

BA said it plans to run a full schedule on the strike days.

The row involves 4,500 cabin crew who have joined BA since 2010. Their union, Unite, says they are on lower wages than other staff.

BA has 16,000 cabin crew overall and could switch staff to deal with strikes

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