Media centre

Thursday 2 Oct 2008

NETWORK RAIL WELCOMES ACAS TALKS AS HELPLINE OPENS TO SIGNALLERS

Region & Route:

Scotland’s Railway: Scotland

Network Rail has welcomed the RMT’s decision to accept conciliation talks with ACAS on Friday (3 October) ahead of scheduled strike action next week.

The move comes as Network Rail launched a confidential helpline and e-mail address dedicated to providing members of Scotland’s railway signalling community with an explanation of the issues behind next week’s strike.

The industrial action has been scheduled by the RMT to disrupt rail services across Scotland for four days from Tuesday 7 October through to Friday 10 October.

David Simpson, Network Rail Route Director, Scotland said:

“We’re pleased that the RMT has decided to accept the offer of conciliation talks with ACAS and hope that we can find a resolution to this unjustified action.

“We understand the signallers’ loyalty to their colleagues, however, on this occasion, we strongly believe that loyalty has been manipulated by local reps within the RMT who have misled members into voting for strike action. We have established a helpline to offer them an alternative source of information to the RMT spin machine.

“I repeat the point which I made earlier this week - we have seen no evidence of roster abuse and do not believe that it is an issue among the wider signalling community.”