A total of around 80 people attended a picket line at Ramsgate Railway Station today (August 18) in support of strike action by National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) members.
The action is being taken in a dispute over pay, jobs, work conditions and safety concerns.
The RMT say Network Rail and train operating companies have subjected their staff to multiyear pay freezes and plan to cut thousands of jobs.
Further action on networks including Southeastern takes place on Saturday 20 August (between 00:01 and 23:59) by members of the RMT & TSSA unions.
Mick Jordan, the RMT rep at Southeastern, said: “There was a good attendance today for our fifth day of industrial action. This peaked at about 80 people at its most but with people dipping in and out during the day.
“The next strike day is on Saturday 20th August.”
Southeastern travel advice
Friday 19 August
If you travel on the day after strike action, Friday 19 August, expect severe disruption in the morning.
Services won’t run until Network Rail staff begin their shifts on Friday.
First trains will be busy, and queueing systems will be in place to manage space on trains, so please plan ahead, check your entire journey and allow extra time.
No services will run before 7am.
There will also be strike action affecting the London Underground and Overground network on Friday 19 August. Visit TfL for more information.
Saturday 20 August
There will be a limited service running on the rail network and some routes will be closed. Please only travel by train if absolutely necessary. If you are travelling expect severe disruption, plan ahead and check your entire journey.
Only 45 out of 180 stations will be open. No rail replacement buses will serve stations which are closed.
You may be unable to board trains at stations where a limited service is running, especially at locations such as Ashford and Ebbsfleet.
The last trains back from London will be much earlier than usual.
I fully support RMT and indeed all those who are trying to manage their financial situation in the current very difficult situation that this government has helped to come about. It’s not wages that have made the inflation the higher mortgage payments the higher food cost the higher energy cost it’s the government that has allowed these prices to increase and done nothing about it. The energy firms should not be allowed to hold this country to ransom. 4% increase should be the maximum increase. Prices have caused this inflation not poor wages.
Railway workers hated by all
Your a Pillock Noddy, get help! And your quite wrong, most people support the rail workers, who are being asked to take a pay cut! As are all the other public service workers, by a corrupt, and incompetant Tory government! Over the last 12 years of Tory rule they have not just looted our taxes, they have wrecked the country, thats why nothing works, try asking the police, Nurses, Social workers, make your own list!
Railway workers certainly are not “hated by all”.
Hear, Hear, Ann, Mick Lynch for Prime Minister, he would be a better choice than the two Tory Muppets standing for election!
Haha, yet another protest outside an empty building from the Ramsgate Popular Front! Maybe they should come back in the morning to see how many commuters REALLY support them?
Commuters?? Are they the only passengers who matter?
What about the elderly, the disabled, the vulnerable, our visitors, holidaymakers and people with awkward luggage or who simply need assistance and properly staffed ticket offices now and again? Are we just an irrelevant collective nuisance who drain the shareholders’ profits?
You’re welcome to ask anyone getting on a train, but obviously this is causing suffering for all rail users.
Your point exactly?
My point is that commuters are highly unlikely to care whether ticket offices and help centres are open or closed because they don’t buy individual tickets and they rarely need help with their journey planning. So their opinions are the least important. Yet you seem to have singled them out on purpose.
Also, the suffering that rail users are now experiencing is pretty minor compared with the permanent suffering we can expect if the staff cuts are allowed to go ahead.
I’ve singled out the fact that they can’t get to work because of the actions of a selfish few… but by all means, you and your cronies go to an OPEN railway station and tell these people that their suffering is “minor”. Oh, and please video it, so that we can all see their reactions (my own reaction would be unprintable!).
“the actions of a selfish few”
That sounds like a pretty apt description of the senior managers who created the need for these strikes in the first place.
I thought you’d be out picketing by now.
If I spent all my time picketing then I wouldn’t have the capacity to reach out to ill informed people in threads like this. There are still a lot of people who think these strikes are all about workers’ pay when in fact the victims of the cuts include every future rail user.
You’re wasting your time trying to convince me, just as I’m wasting my time trying to convince you.
sadly thatcher stuffed this type of industrial action years ago , the main thing these lads have in thier favour is the goverment cant shut the railways ????
I believe they did just that in the 1960s . . .
Sadly Thatcher/Major decided to privatise the railways, water companies, gas & energy companies & deregulate the city like Reagan & look at the results.
Greedy bankers crippled the world, water companies see fit to dump billions of litres of sewage into the sea, leave leaks unrepaired etc so billions of litres are flushed away every day, while paying out huge bonuses to themselves & the shareholders for abject failure & criminal conduct.
Energy companies that keep putting their prices up while recording record profits & awarding themselves massive bonuses. Train bosses who keep screwing their customers with endless price rises for a poor service & while trying to sack their staff to increase their bank accounts at the expense of safety.
But Thatcher is the hero? She & her party are the cause of all this.
Steve
100% correct
South Eastern train drivers in 2020 earned on average over £53k. In 2022, salaries increased to over £57k. Conductors starting salary is £23k. I don’t think I need to say more.
Train drivers are ASLEF
This isn’t London. This ridiculous argument has been debunked.
Wrong. High speed drivers are on the higher wage.
My son’s friend was coming down from London Victoria today, they checked that the limited service was still running at 13.10hrs today, that was last night, and checked again this morning, to be told it was.
He made the effort to get to Victoria Station today and at 13.00hrs was told there would be no more trains, disgraceful behaviour and rude.
Poor lad had to go home and lose his money on his hotel reservation.
No sympathy for the railway workers.
8% pay rise rejected!! We are all going to be affected with everyday increases, but the majority gets on with it, without disrupting other peoples lives or inconvenience
Maybe you should tell your son’s friend he should use his brains & not travel during an advertised rail strike, or travel down before it.
Surely he already used his brains by checking?
The print always says subject to change. Obviously with strikes, the potential illnesses/Covid removals it is going to change on a rapid basis.
Why on earth would anybody think things are going to run smoothly on the days a strike is happening? They have advised over & over not to travel on these days unless it is totally necessary-such as medical matters.
He knew it wasn’t going to run smoothly, that’s why he checked DOH
Railway workers absolute selfish layabouts beating the public for their own greed. Hated by all
Only by selfish idiots. The reality is they are not only doing this for themselves but for the public-who will of course be the first to complain when the ticket machine isn’t working & they cannot buy a ticket because all the ticket booths have been closed & the staff fired, when the unmanned stations to save money results in them or their relatives being physically or sexually attacked, when trains derail because profit is put over maintenance/safety etc.
Railway workers are not “hated by all”.
So where are all the staff that are on strike??
Do they not join the picket line on their “day off”??
See how they struggle on proper low wages!
In some parts of the country, these “struggling” drivers are refusing overtime!
What do you want? Drivers finishing their shift, then coming back in on 2 hours sleep, falling asleep & crashing? Lay the blame where it belongs-the greedy vermin train operators screwing their staff & the public to fill their already mammoth bank accounts & the government.
Anyway Shapps & the other Tory morons pronounced that striking workers would be easily replaced when it started-no doubt he thought they could just pop down the Jobcentres & recruitment agencies & train out of work shelf stackers drivers, conductors etc in a couple of weeks.
They’re refusing to work on their days off after a good night’s sleep… which they’re perfectly entitled to do so. But anyone who is REALLY struggling, no matter how sh*t or poorly paid the job is, does NOT refuse overtime. I should know.
The strikers are losing money by now going to work, this is not about greed. It is about a fair deal, protecting jobs, their pension fund, stations from closure & passenger safety. Teachers, Royal Mail workers, Nurses, Binmen, etc are all going to be taking action soon, or in some areas do-like Brighton with the bin saga.
Are you just going to shout lazy, selfish skivers at all of them? Or are you going to admit there is a serious issue with these greedy, multi millionaire vermin running the companies taking vast sums/bonuses for their abject failures year after year & criminal conduct like Southern Sewage & the government backing them & wasting billions themselves & that something has to change?
Why weren’t any (or many) of these on the Ramsgate picket line then?
See my response to Noddy below.
funny when i passed must of been about 15 people there guessing they phoned the families just for the photo call get back to work you greedy people
Nick, by being on strike they aren’t being paid for those days-how is that being greedy?
🤣
The great unwashed lefties at it again, financed by the taxpayer via communist multi-trillionaire banksters.
They are selfish gits punisishing the public for their own selfish gain. They couldnt care less about the country they cant even be bothered to turn up and picket. The majority ofthe public hate them.
If they are selfish/only care about money Noddy, then why are they going on strike & costing themselves money doing so? They don’t get paid when on strike. 80 there, so likely quite a few of them. Others chose to go to other picket lines elsewhere.
Maybe some of them don’t want their faces shown for fear of the usual Daily Mail, Sun etc baying mob idiots, who also believe the lies being printed attacking them or their families.
You know, the mental giants who during the Pedo panic the News Of The World orchestrated, were attacking/killing innocent people who looked somewhat like the pictures they were publishing & just happened to live in that area & even went after a Pediatrician, because it sounded like Paedophile.
Think you will find the multi-trillionaire bankers fund the Tory Party in return for special favours & peerages, not the Unions. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-conservatives-rich-donors-b1898260.html
Why is asking for fair treatment ‘Lefty’? I really don’t understand. Please explain
Iirc but welcomed to be corrected, the current southeastern train service is a government Operator of Last Resort.
They kept the name of southeastern as its cheaper not to re-brand os something like.
Operators of last resorts have become news since energy and transportation services have lost the financial plot or something like that.
Some understanding of how many passengers are actually travelling is important, working from home needs to be considered especially when companies alloy a tax free grant.
Funding for operator of last resort, is just that. Projects similar to hs2. lizzy line all need funding and more.
The plane will take the strain.
Noddy the one trick pony internet keyboard warrior calling actual ‘workers’ lazy. Seems most of the daily fail trolls on here are calling strike supporters workshy but then spend all their time trolling comment sections 24/7 as they probably have never worked an honest day in their lives
Senior management could solve this crisis in the blink of an eye by listening to RMT and responding positively to what they’re asking for. Don’t blame the workers, blame the management