Southern Railway strike (2016–2017)

A collection of Class 377 and Class 455 trains, operated by Southern

The strike by conductors and drivers on Southern Railway is a major industrial action, which resulted in the severe disruption and cancellation of Southern's trains, and during some strikes, temporarily shutting down the whole of the South East rail network in an attempt to stop plans to introduce Driver Only Operation (DOO) on all trains operated by Southern. It was led by Mick Cash of the RMT union, with the ASLEF union joining in November. Opposition to the strikes were led by Prime Minister Theresa May and Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling, who labelled the strikes as "appalling" ^[1] and "palpable nonsense".^[2]

Background

In April 2016, Southern introduced a new method of door operation, with control of the doors moving from the conductor to the driver. Southern also proposed that, following the changes to the door operation, that conductors would now take on an "on-board supervisor role", which would enable conductors to be able to concentrate on the passengers more as opposed to the doors, but the RMT and ASLEF union described this as an attempt to make conductors unnecessary, and would also be unsafe. However, the rail safety regulator, the Rail Safety and Standards Board, said that "We have 30 years of data which we have analysed. We have found that the driver performing the task does not increase the risk to passengers at all."^[3] The BBC suggested that the RMT union are particularly worried about the new method of operation because if drivers, rather than conductors, control the doors then trains could run without conductors and any strike by conductors would not have the power to cancel trains.^[4] As a result of this, the RMT and Aslef unions went on strike over the changes, causing severe disruption to Southern services.^[5]

Period of events

On 26 April 2016, conductors who were members of the RMT Union walked out on strike for 24 hours.^[6] On April 29, 2016, talks were held at the dispute resolution service Acas however, this did not stop the strikes, and more were called.^[7] As a result of the strikes and a high period of staff sickness, Southern introduced an "amended timetable [that] would be a temporary measure until staffing returned to normal" to be announced on 5 July. The RMT trade union said that 350 services would be cancelled every day (the company ran 2,242 weekday services in the previous timetable). The union denied that high levels of sickness were the cause of cancellations, while agreeing that there were an insufficient number of guards and drivers.^[8]

In November 2016, the ASLEF Union held a ballot for drivers working for Southern on whether they wanted to go on strike. The strike ballot was initially suspended due to "technical difficulties",^[9] however when the ballot was re-run, drivers voted overwhelmingly to strike.^[10] As a result, on December 6, 2016, drivers from the ASLEF union started an indefinite overtime ban, and the union also announced that drivers would strike on 13/14 December, 16 December and 9 January to 16 January 2017.^[11] As the strike would force no trains to run on the entire of the Southern network, Southern's parent company, Govia Thameslink Railway launched a high court case to stop the strikes, citing that it "breaches Customer's rights under EU law";^[12] however, the court ruled that ASLEF were allowed to strike. On December 13, 2016, the first day of ASLEF strike action, Southern launched an appeal to the Court of appeal; however, judges upheld the decision.^[13] The strikes by ASLEF were branded as "causing the worst rail disruption in 20 years" by The Guardian as all 2,242 services operated by Southern were cancelled throughout the strikes.^[14] Thameslink services became increasingly busy as a result of the strike, and ticket acceptance was in place on other operator's services. GTR and ASLEF held talks at Acas, however no deal was made,^[15] despite reports that "progress has been made" within the talks.^[16]

In January 2017, 3 days of a planned 1 week strike by ASLEF and RMT unions were called off, however, the strike dates were moved to the end of the month.^[17] The Union's leader, Mick Whelan however threatened that "more strikes were to come", while Southern described ASLEF as "showing pure contempt for the travelling public".^[18] On January 5, 2017, the Office of Rail and Road published a report into Southern's plans. The report declared that driver only operation on Southern services were "safe if conditions are met".^[19][20] As a result of the report, The Government called on the unions to "end the strikes immediately" however Whelan argued that "the report does not give driver-only operation a clean bill of health."^[19] On January 11, 2017, Govia Thameslink Railway announced that they had launched a legal challenge at the Supreme Court against the ASLEF union.^[21] Meanwhile, on January 12, 2017, the RMT union announced conductors would walk out on strike on January 23 for 24 hours.^[22]

Agreement with ASLEF

On 17 January 2017, the Trades Union Congress (TUC) announced that ASLEF had called off a three-day strike due to occur at the end of January. The indefinite overtime ban by drivers was also suspended as talks were being held at the TUC between GTR and the union.^[23] On 2 February 2017, the TUC announced that talks between Southern and ASLEF had reached an agreement/a deal meaning that the dispute with ASLEF had been resolved.^[24] The deal agreed was balloted to drivers, however on February 16, 2017, ASLEF announced that members had rejected the deal.^[25]

RMT reaction

BBC News reports that RMT assistant general secretary Steve Hedley said it was "scandalous other people think they can do a deal that affects our members"..."We are not bound by that deal. The dispute is still on". However, the RMT is to meet Govia Thameslink Railway (Southern's parent company) for further talks.^[26]

References