UPDATED ::: 09.27
PEACE talks intended to resolve the Southern conductors' dispute have failed, and their union the RMT has called a further strike for next week.
Conductors are now set to walk out on Tuesday 21 June, while Southern's owner Govia Thameslink Railway has confirmed its plans to replace most Southern conductors with on board supervisors who will not control the doors.
Angry Southern commuters staged a demonstration at Brighton station last night.
The Conservative MP for Croydon South, Chris Philp, told the BBC that Southern had been doing an 'appalling job', and he called for the large GTR franchise to be broken up. He said the RMT was also at fault, because he did not believe the DOO proposals affected safety. "The people suffering are my constituents. In one extreme case, one of them has lost her job."
GTR said its proposals to change the role of the second staff member on board Southern trains 'protected all jobs and benefited passengers'.
The company said talks had ended at ACAS yesterday without any 'practical proposal' from the RMT, which instead presented a seven-point plan explaining how conductors would keep their present duties, combined with related changes to the job of Revenue Protection Officers and potential changes at several RPO depots. The union continues to maintain that the changes which Southern is introducing will jeopardise safety.
However, GTR warned that it was 'not prepared to favour one group of employees over any other', and insisted that the transition on Southern would begin in August. It added that further strikes, 'which just cause misery to passengers', were 'entirely unnecessary'. It has undertaken to 'engage directly with employees' in the meantime.
Chief operating officer Dyan Crowther said: “Despite six months of talks, the RMT gave us no practical plan to implement the new role at ACAS – instead we have this announcement of a totally unnecessary strike. We now have no option but to confirm the implementation of the new role.
“This new on-board role will keep people on trains, and re-focus their roles on assisting passengers. No-one is losing their job, and as many services will have someone on board as they do today.
“We know that many passengers are experiencing a poor service at the moment, that’s why we need to bring in these changes as quickly as possible.”
Services on Southern have also been disrupted in recent weeks by high levels of sickness among conductors, and rail minister Claire Perry has joined the debate by accusing those involved of staging a work to rule which is 'outrageous and unfair'.
Meanwhile Govia Thameslink is now working towards the goals set out for it in a Remedial Plan published by the DfT at the end of May, which outlined a series of problems which have contributed to poor performance. It is understood that the DOO changes on Southern formed part of Govia's bid for the Thameslink contract.
In a related development, the RMT has stepped up its campaign against driver only operation by launching a document which sets out recent incidents in which passengers have been injured when boarding or alighting from trains.
The unions are opposing any extensions of DOO. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: “This dossier has been produced by RMT as part of our national fight against the introduction and extension of Driver Only Operation on Britain’s railways as the greedy train operating companies look to dilute the safety regime in favour of maximising their profits from the privatised network.
“The dossier sets out a range of examples from across the country that detail the real consequences for the travelling public of axing and undermining the safety-critical role of the guard.
“The examples are horrific – but the current moves, in the wake of the Government-backed McNulty report that made DOO the default option on our trains – mean that they will be the tip of the iceberg if we don’t halt and reverse the drive to take out the guards."