Senior conductors working at Central Trains have announced a 24-hour strike in two week's time after accusing bosses of allowing a long-running dispute to escalate further.
The 550 National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) members plan to strike on Saturday February 24th in a row over Central Trains' new computerised roster system, CrewPlan.
During last Christmas and the new year workers launched industrial action over the same issue, but Central Trains is insisting that CrewPlan is more efficient and less error-prone than previous paper-based roster systems.
Workers had also announced plans to refuse to issue tickets before deciding to launch a full-scale strike instead.
"If the company put as much effort into settling this dispute as they have put into intimidating and winding our members up it would have been be over by now," said Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT.
"By threatening to stop half the pay of conductors who refused to issue tickets and sending home those who refused to provide cross-depot cover, the company has made the situation far worse, not least for Central's passengers."
In response, Central Trains, which operates services across the Midlands and the north-west, has said that the strike action will hit both passengers and senior conductors' pay packets.
"With this action, the RMT is again inconveniencing passengers. Our customers tell us that not being able to buy a ticket or seeing people travel without buying a ticket is one of their main concerns," said the company's managing director Steve Banaghan.
"Over the last two years Central Trains has reduced by half the number of people who try to travel without a ticket in the West Midlands. So after disrupting Christmas and New Year travel plans for our customers, the RMT is now going to inconvenience them further by this action."
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