Update: Strikes by Southern rail staff on Thursday and Friday have been called off as talks continue, ACAS reports.
Southern Railway bosses have vowed to operate driver-only trains based on a list of 'exceptional circumstances' with or without union backing, it has emerged.
Speaking to Transport Network, bosses at the troubled railway line said that a proposed list of conditions for driver-only operations would have to be accepted by unions and that they would push ahead with the plans despite the risk of more strikes.
It comes as the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union claimed GTR had rejected its offer to call off its five-day strike by conductors on Southern Rail if the company agreed to unconditional talks.
The company has published an eight-point ‘compromise plan’ to end the strike, including calls for union agreement to ‘a proposed list of exceptional circumstances whereby a train can run without a second member of staff on-board’.
A spokesman for Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which owns Southern, told Transport Network: ‘Unless the RMT agrees to our offer as detailed, including agreement of the list of exceptional circumstances, we will be progressing our plans later this month on terms determined by us.’
The spokesman declined to make the company’s proposed list available to Transport Network.
An RMT spokesman told Transport Network that the union was prepared to discuss the company’s list of ‘exceptional circumstances’ in the context of a wider attempt to resolve the dispute, although he feared that the circumstances were ‘as simple as a member of staff not being available’.
The spokesman also confirmed that the union would be prepared to discuss proposals to extend train drivers’ responsibility for opening and closing doors, alongside drivers’ union ASLEF, if the company would ‘guarantee that there is a conductor on every service where there is a current requirement’.
The RMT is concerned about the impact of removing the second member of staff on disabled and older passengers, the spokesman added.
On Wednesday morning (10 August) RMT general secretary Mick Cash claimed that GTR had ‘slammed the door’ on the union’s ‘offer of talks without any pre conditions which would have led to a suspension of the current action for the rest of this week’.
‘Their position is that we can discuss anything we like as long as it's only what they want to discuss,’ he said. The union also held a protest outside the offices of the Department for Transport over claims that the Government was interfering in the strike.
,Andy McDonald, Labour’s shadow transport secretary criticised ministers for not getting involved.
He said: ‘I am today asking the transport secretary Chris Grayling to join with us in urging GTR to urgently accept the offer of RMT to enter into immediate unconditional talks to secure a resolution of the Southern rail dispute.
‘All he needs to do is pick up the phone to GTR and rail services can be restored in time for tomorrow's rush hour. He needs to act immediately. The long suffering passengers will not understand why a Government minister would do anything other than encourage all parties to embrace this opportunity.’
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