Southern Railway 'taking legal action to stop strikes'

Southern Railway is taking legal action to try to stop a series of strikes from tomorrow, the RMT union has said.

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union said on Monday it had received a legal challenge from the operator - just hours before the start of a three-day walkout.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: "It is appalling that rather than sitting down with us at Acas today to seek a resolution, the company have chosen to run to the courts under the cloak of the anti-union laws.

"The union intends to continue with the planned action and is examining the details of the paperwork."

Mr Cash said the strike action remained "definitely on" and urged RMT members "to continue preparing for this action, organise the picket lines and protests and continue to show your determination and solidarity in your fight for justice".

A spokesman for Southern Railway said: "On Friday they told their conductor members to accept a deal, and then tomorrow they plan to strike against it.

"It is a situation which will leave our passengers baffled, and in that context we are presently considering all possible options to stop the strike."

He added: "We have written to the RMT about the validity of the dispute in light of recent developments. We await their response and will consider all possible options to stop the strike and that includes a legal challenge."

Workers are due to go on strike from one minute past midnight on Tuesday, causing fresh travel misery for rail commuters.

It comes amid a long-running dispute over the role of conductors on Southern Railway trains.

Last Monday, the operator put a new offer on the table in what it described as "a final attempt" to resolve the matter.

This included paying a £2,000 lump sum to conductors - to be paid once the dispute is resolved.

It also included guarantees on conductors' jobs until 2021, guaranteed levels of overtime, as well as above-inflation pay increases for the next two years.

Southern Railway, in a letter to Mr Cash, said it would "regretfully proceed without the RMT's involvement" and serve notice letters to conductors to end their contracts if an agreement was not reached within four days.

Conductors would then be invited to sign up to a new "on board supervisor role" from January.

The deadline passed without the dispute being resolved.

At the same time, a Twitter (Frankfurt: A1W6XZ - news) campaign by the operator calling on passengers to "strike back" at the union appeared to backfire.

While some passengers backed the operator, many reacted angrily to the move and instead used the opportunity to criticise Southern Railway over its handling of the dispute.