Rail engineers mull industrial action

RMT members unhappy with new rosters and working conditions

More than 200 engineers at a leading rail company are to be balloted for industrial action over claims that industrial relations have "comprehensively broken down".

Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union at Southern Rail will vote in the coming weeks on whether to mount a campaign of action over issues including new rosters and working conditions.

The union claims that Southern initiated a project called LEAN, which prescribes the length of time its engineers should take on each job, without any consultation.

The union is also seeking a four-hour cut in the working week to 35 hours. 

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "RMT will not stand by while agreed policies, procedures and agreements are unilaterally ripped up by Southern and as a result we are now in dispute.

"Southern is a company intensively under the spotlight over its performance at the moment and RMT will not have our members scapegoated for failures at the top by outrageous and intimidatory demands to meet impossible work targets and through attacks on working conditions.

"The union is in no doubt that the pressure on these staff to deliver impossible targets compromises safety in what is clearly a safety-critical environment."

Southern services include commuter trains between London and Sussex.