RMT strike action

You may have heard that following the ballot of its Southern conductor members, the RMT union has announced that it intends to hold three 24-hour strikes.

This will affect services on the following days:

• Tuesday 26th and Wednesday 27th April
• Tuesday 10th and Wednesday 11th May
• Thursday 12th and Friday 13th May

We are disappointed that it has come to this, especially as we have been at pains to assure all of our conductors that there will be no job losses or reduction in salary as a result of the improvements we want to make on board our trains. This strike action is completely unnecessary and damaging.

We thought we'd take this opportunity to explain to you what it is we want to do on board our trains and how the changes would be nothing but beneficial to you.

On our more modern trains, we want to evolve the conductor role into one of an on-board supervisor, who is more visible to more passengers, travelling on more parts of the network, delivering high-quality customer service and checking tickets. There would be as many trains running with staff on board as they do now - but you will see more of them than you do now because they will have more time and opportunity to offer good quality customer service.

Currently, conductors on our more modern trains have to be in certain parts of the train to close the doors - sometimes interrupting their time with a passenger. However, on these trains, there is no need to do this and the driver is able to operate the doors aided by modern CCTV systems, which gives them a clear view of every door on the train.

In addition to the benefits of evolving the conductors' role above, trains that don't need a conductor won't rely on a second member of staff for the train to run, and in times of disruption, that's really going to help trains run on time - something we are passionate about.

GTR provides over 3,000 train services per day and 60% of these already run without conductors operating the doors and have done on parts of the railway for the past 25 years, so we are frankly baffled as to why there is a reluctance to extend this for the benefit of our passengers.

We would like to consult fully with the RMT union on what we see as a very positive move for our staff and passengers, but unfortunately the union has refused to sit down and talk to us about it, and is now threatening these strikes.

We want to improve customer service on board our trains through consultation and agreement, and have repeatedly assured the union that there will be no job losses or any loss of salary.

We continue to urge the RMT to return to the negotiating table, to avoid making you suffer during a strike, but in the meantime, we are working to finalise contingency plans for our services on strike days, and must warn you that disruption is likely to be significant.

We anticipate being able to publicise the level of service we expect to offer approximately 24-48 hours before strike action takes place.