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Strike halts Caledonian Sleeper train Strike halts Caledonian Sleeper train
(about 5 hours later)
A 48-hour strike by workers on the Caledonian Sleeper service between Scotland and London will go ahead on Tuesday night after talks broke down. Anyone planning a romantic overnight rail trip to Scotland for Christmas will be sorely disappointed after staff on the Caledonian Sleeper train voted to strike.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union will walk out at 6.30pm, halting services. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union will walk out at 6.30pm on Tuesday for 48 hours after the failure of last-ditch talks with Serco, which runs the service.
The dispute is over union claims of defects to trains which it says pose safety threats. The strike will affect four overnight services between London and Scotland departing on Tuesday and Wednesday, disrupting the plans of around 1,000 passengers.
The two sides met for last-ditch talks which ended without agreement just before midnight. Serco said it had contacted 95% of the people affected, adding that they would be offered refunds.
The union has raised issues including disconnected smoke detectors, lighting and heating systems not working, and loss of power during journeys. Union officials blamed the strike on a long list of faults that they said meant trains were potentially dangerous and “riddled with health, safety and welfare issues”.
These include disconnected smoke detectors, broken air-conditioning and no hot water for hand-washing in some carriages.
The RMT said this meant staff had to carry pots of boiling water through the train while it was moving.
They also complained of a pungent smell emanating from the toilets and loss of power that meant workers had to help vexed passengers find new rooms in the middle of the night.
The RMT said it had been left with “no option but to ballot for industrial action before someone is injured”.
The allegations are an embarrassment for a service that promises the old-fashioned romance of falling asleep in England and waking up the next morning in the Scottish Highlands.
The Scottish government awarded the sleeper franchise to Serco in March. It took over from First Group.
In its winning bid, Serco promised to turn the Caledonian Sleeper into a “rolling hotel”, but is not due to start operating new, improved rolling stock until 2018. The sleeper carriages currently used on the service are more than 25 years old.
The decision to go ahead with strike action came after hours of talks with the conciliation service Acas failed to produce an agreement.
The general secretary of the RMT, Mick Cash, said: “The poor service to passengers, in conjunction with the company’s failure to address the issues raised by RMT representatives and officials in talks right up to the wire late last night, reached the point where the union decided enough is enough and left us with no option but to put on industrial action before someone is injured.The general secretary of the RMT, Mick Cash, said: “The poor service to passengers, in conjunction with the company’s failure to address the issues raised by RMT representatives and officials in talks right up to the wire late last night, reached the point where the union decided enough is enough and left us with no option but to put on industrial action before someone is injured.
“That action now goes ahead. Serco never had any intention of taking the talks process seriously and have treated both staff and public with complete contempt throughout.”“That action now goes ahead. Serco never had any intention of taking the talks process seriously and have treated both staff and public with complete contempt throughout.”
The Scottish government awarded the sleeper franchise to Serco in March . It took over from First Group. Another RMT spokesman said Serco, best known for its government outsourcing business, should never have been awarded the Caledonian Sleeper franchise, pointing to the prison tagging overcharging scandal in 2013 that saw the company temporarily blocked from winning public work.
“They were banned from getting public contracts for a while and are in massive financial difficulties,” he said.
“The end result is that everything we said would happen has come true. It’s dangerous to staff, dangerous to passengers and services are being cancelled at the last minute ... it’s an absolute shambles.”
He said Serco were “specialists in failure” who should hand over the keys to a public service operator.
Peter Strachan, managing director of the Caledonian Sleeper, said: “Both Serco and, more importantly, over a thousand of our paying passengers, are being hugely inconvenienced by this wholly unnecessary action by the RMT in the run-up to Christmas.”