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A TABLE and empty chairs were left outside ScotRail HQ yesterday in a flash-mob protest urging management back to talks to avert today’s strikes on the network.
Transport union RMT said it was “extraordinary” that ScotRail had “sabotaged” planned talks at conciliation service Acas by refusing to turn up yesterday.
General secretary Mick Cash said the union “has made repeated attempts to get talks moving and it makes no sense at all for the company to continue to blank us unless they are hell-bent on bulldozing through cuts to jobs and safety.”
Bosses denied that they had boycotted the negotiations.
ScotRail Alliance managing director Phil Verster told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland programme that the comments were “a mystery” to him and that strike action was “totally unnecessary.”
RMT Scotland organiser Mick Hogg hit back, accusing Mr Verster of talking “absolute nonsense.”
He said: “This dispute is not about more money, it’s about safety. That’s why we are insisting the guard must remain on the train in order to ensure that Scotland’s trains do run safely.”
Mr Hogg reiterated the point that the role of the guard is “safety-critical” and warned that, in the event of a collision or derailment, “there would be no-one who is safety-trained in order to evacuate the passengers safely.”
Scottish TUC general secretary Grahame Smith added his support to RMT’s “fight to keep Scotland’s trains running safely” opposing Abellio ScotRail’s efforts to extend driver-only operation on Scotland’s railway.
He called on the Scottish government to “force Abellio to engage constructively with the RMT in an effort to negotiate an acceptable solution to this dispute.”
Scottish Labour transport spokesman Neil Bibby said: “No-one wants to see industrial action but there are clear questions here about safety that have not been effectively resolved.
“Labour would encourage both sides to get round the table to sort this situation out.
“Questions should also be asked of the SNP government over what assurances they sought and received over these concerns, which have been a long-standing issue on Scotland’s railways, before handing a contract with millions of pounds’ worth of taxpayer money to Abellio.”
