AHEAD of the powerful one-day strike at nine major train privateers this Saturday, Aslef General Secretary Mick Whelan has accused one of them, Avanti West Coast, of ‘lying to passengers’ about the reasons it is unable to run the services it has promised to deliver.
Whelan said yesterday: ‘We are on strike at Avanti West Coast on Saturday (13 August).
‘That is official industrial action after an overwhelming mandate from members fed up with an intransigent chief executive who refuses to give drivers an increase in line with inflation for a third successive year.
‘The company wants its drivers to carry on working with a “real terms pay cut”.
‘There is – and has been – no unofficial action on Avanti West Coast this week.
‘The truth is that the company does not employ enough drivers to deliver the services it has promised passengers it will run.
‘In fact, the company itself has admitted that 400 trains a week are dependent on drivers working their rest days (that is, working overtime on their days off).
‘Avanti was already running a truncated timetable.
‘Now it has doubled down by cutting even more services. It would have no need to do this if it had enough drivers!
‘The company should stop lying and start recruiting.
‘Then it will be able to deliver the services it has promised passengers it will run.
‘At the moment the company is lying to passengers, and lying to staff. It needs to do better.’
He added the warning: ‘If one of our members is verbally abused, or physically attacked, because of the company’s lies, we will hold the company to account.’
Whelan has written to the Transport secretary, Grant Shapps, claiming he has ‘echoed the company’s lies on his Twitter account’.
Aslef’s accusations are backed by the other main rail union, RMT, which condemned Avanti’s arbitrary decision to cut timetabled trains and wrote to Shapps on Tuesday asking the same thing: had he sanctioned the timetable cut?
In Tuesday’s letter to Shapps, RMT general secretary Mick Lynch said: ‘Avanti are falsely and shamefully making allegations that this decision is due to unofficial industrial action when the reality is this decision arises from poor management, cutting staffing to the bare minimum and rock bottom staff morale.
‘I am presuming that you sanctioned this decision, and I would therefore be grateful for an urgent meeting to discuss the crisis, including clarification of the following points: “Confirmation that your permission was required for Avanti to implement a reduced timetable. Is Avanti in breach of their contract with the Department of Transport and what sanctions will you be taking against Avanti? Has public ownership of the contract been considered?” ’
