ScotRail staff vote for strike action

More than 500 RMT members voted by a massive five-to-one margin to walk out for 24 hours on February 20 and follow the strike with two more stoppages in March after management refused to back down on plans to cut train guards on a new Edinburgh-to-Glasgow route.

First ScotRail, whose parent company First Group raked in more than £94 million profit and handed over £18m to shareholders last year, insists that the cuts are necessary to save £300,000.

But RMT leader Bob Crow countered that the overwhelming vote to strike "shows just how angry our union members are over this."

Mr Crow pointed out that union agreements going back to 2001 guaranteed that trains would be staffed by a driver and a guard to ensure passengers' safety and stressed that "anyone in doubt of the crucial role played by guards need only read First Group's own rigorous training manual and listen to the railway workers who know from bitter experience that properly trained guards save lives."

First ScotRail's plans mean that train guards would be replaced with low-paid ticket inspectors, while drivers would take over the operation of train doors and have to run the service without any back-up crew.

Mr Crow emphasised that such a downgrading of the guards' duties would be "the thin edge of the wedge and breach First ScotRail's contractual obligation to run trains with at least two workers aboard.

"I hope that rail users in Scotland will understand that we are making a stand for their safety as well as for our members' safety and will join with us in demanding that the Scottish government steps in to stop First ScotRail putting cash before safety," he declared.

Mr Crow added that the company's plan to train 200 managers to scab on the strikes demonstrated the privateer's "scandalous attitude to safety that is only underlined by its shabby attempts to put together this inadequately trained scab army."