Southern rail strikes: Aslef union suspends ballot on fresh walkouts

Strike hit: Southern services have been hit by walkouts
PA
Robin de Peyer7 November 2016

A major trade union has suspended a ballot on fresh strike action on Southern rail services because of “technical difficulties”.

Aslef had started asking its members if they wanted to take industrial action in a dispute over driver-only trains.

The result of the ballot was due within two weeks, raising the threat of strikes at the end of the month.

Aslef said it will reissue ballot papers to almost 1,000 drivers.

Southern still faces a series of strikes in the coming weeks by the RMT union in the bitter dispute over the role of conductors.

The latest 48-hour walkout ended at midnight, with further stoppages planned later this month, early December, in the run up to Christmas and over new year.

The RMT is also balloting its driver members for strikes.

Angie Doll, Southern's passenger services director, said: "We're pleased that Aslef has called off this ballot. This welcome development gives us the time and opportunity to sit down with union officials to resolve their dispute.

"We've now got over 200 conductors signed up to the new on-board role and over the last two sets of strikes nearly a third of conductors turned up for work, disproving the union's claims that support is rock solid. Drivers having sole control of the train has been shown over decades of operation to be entirely safe and 15 years of research by independent rail safety experts corroborates this. We'll have a second member of safety-trained staff on more trains than we do today so the RMT's arguments are baseless and vacuous.

"The union leadership has stooped to a new low by calling strike dates over the Christmas period and we know of some conductors who have now resigned their union membership over this selfish, shameful and spiteful act. The union's leadership is maintaining a clear and blatant disregard for workers, families, the elderly and the disabled seeking to be with loved ones over the holiday season. It's a time for Santa and mistletoe, not strikes and misery. The union must think again about their vindictive desire to see Christmas cancelled for the travelling public.

"These past eight months of strikes have had a profound effect on both passengers and our staff. The travelling public is sick and tired of the continuing disruption to their lives and are very angry, and rightly so. But I'd ask them to consider the very difficult position that many employees have been put in during these strikes.

"A large number have defied the picket line to work during the strikes and many others that join the strikes do so under significant peer pressure and with great reluctance."

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