Elaine Brunskill and Norman Hall, Newcastle Socialist Party
RMT members working as guards on CrossCountry trains took two days of strike action on 23 and 25 August in an ongoing dispute over rest-day working arrangements.
It was great to see RMT flags flying as we approached the Newcastle picket line.
Strikers told us that this strike is about a multitude of things, including CrossCountry not fulfilling a promise in 2023 that they would fill all vacancies. One of the strikers commented: “It’s 2025 and they still haven’t filled all the positions.”
There has been an undermining of the safety-critical role. CrossCountry are getting contingency guards to cover the role of train managers and senior conductors, strikers said.
They explained that one of the sticking points was that management has backtracked on an agreement that all grades would get a rest-day working enhancement. Bosses are now saying they are only prepared to pay extra money (which was to include time-and-a-half for booked Saturday shifts) to train managers and senior conductors.
One of the strikers commented, “We cannot allow the company to offer a manager extra money for giving up their time off, but not us”. They went on to say, “Their time off is no more important than a cleaner’s”.
