Railway catering staff in Edinburgh, Glasgow and seven locations in England and Wales have walked out at the start of a two-day strike over work-life balance issues.
RMT union members at Avanti West Coast staged pickets at Edinburgh Waverley, Glasgow Central, Preston, Liverpool Lime Street, London Euston, Manchester Piccadilly, Wolverhampton, Carlisle and Holyhead stations today and will return tomorrow morning.
Edinburgh staff rep Peter told Heckle that staff have “no work-life balance at present” due to management misuse of rostering mechanisms originally intended for exceptional circumstances.
Short-term planning (STP) diagrams which were meant to allow shifts to be rearranged to accommodate engineering works and bank holidays are “now being used on a daily basis”, he said.
Peter explained: “With these [STP diagrams], the company have the power to move staff two hours from their start or end times. This is done with three or four days’ notice.
“So staff could think that they’re working a certain length of shift starting at eight in the morning, which could be moved to 10 or six.
“There’s no work-life balance at present. Staff can’t plan for hospital appointments, childcare, anything like that.
“The company is misusing what these are intended for. So we’re out to try and get a better work-life balance for the staff to stop these STP diagrams being misused.”
Avanti West Coast has engaged in negotiations but the RMT union says they failed to make a breakthrough.
“We need to get them back round the table talking properly and find a better resolution than what they’ve proposed,” Peter said.
In a statement yesterday, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said Avanti West Coast’s “chaotic management” had led to “unacceptable stress and fatigue” for staff.
The private company — a partnership between FirstGroup and Italian state-backed rail company Tenitalia — has a contract to run services on the West Coast Main Line until at least 2026.
The new Labour government in Westminster has pledged to bring rail companies into public ownership, though media reports suggest that Avanti West Coast, despite its deep unpopularity, could be the last of all British rail companies to be taken out of private hands.
Rail unions also warn that nationalisation is no silver bullet for staff or passengers, with RMT and ASLEF members at publicly-owned ScotRail currently being balloted for strike action following an “insulting” below-inflation pay offer.
