London Midland go to mediation group ACAS

A train company is asking a union to sit down with bosses and mediation service ACAS to end a row that’s seen trains between Coventry and Nuneaton cancelled for over a month.



Dozens of services have been replaced with buses because drivers won’t do overtime until a new pay deal’s worked out between London Midland and their union ASLEF.

Two other meetings have failed to reach an agreement.

Operations Director Wallace Weatherill says customers are getting the time to plan around the action:

“We’ve been trying to give as much information to passengers as possible about what trains will be affected.”

“We’ve used our website to give at least 48 hours notice, we’ve found that particularly useful to pass information on to the customers.”

The company says it is hoping to put on more services this Sunday despite drivers standing down again in a separate dispute after their Sunday pay was cut.

They’re now getting 10% less for those shifts, although London Midland say it was never a binding permanent deal.

Director of Operations and Safety, Wallace Weatherill, said: “London Midland is phasing these temporary Sunday arrangements from double time to time-and-a-half over four months to allow families to budget for the change.”

“Our drivers do a demanding and highly responsible job, but our disagreement is with ASLEF and its unrealistic demands, rather than individual drivers.”

ASLEF have told Mercia they are angry that the changes have been brought in without any consultation – and rep Mick Whelan said he didn’t buy their reasoning that the reductions were needed because it is financially unsustainable:

“At no time have they come to us and said that, it’s interesting from a company whose revenues have increased by 9% in the past 12 months.”

“All that the company’s poor tactics do is harden attitudes of the people on the ground, they’ll get less and less goodwill rather than more and more.”

Talking about London Midland’s attempt to get ASLEF to meet with them and ACAS, he said: “They say one thing and do something fundamentally different so we find it very difficult to sit around a table with them at this time.”

He also warned the dispute could affect weekend trains for some time: “I think it will for some time. The company’s attitudes are attritional and aggressive at the moment and we are actually trying not to over-react.”

You can see a day-by-day breakdown of how services are affected here.