Eurostar staff go on strike this weekend

Monday, 27 Jul, 2018 0

Eurostar is insisting its services will run as normal tomorrow despite strike action by its station staff on Saturday (July 28).

Members of the rail union Rail will strike for 24 hours in a dispute over ‘shocking and dangerous’ working conditions resulting from ‘repeated service failures and breakdowns’.

The RMT claims the international terminal at St Pancras has been ‘reduced to chaos’ following a spate of service problems that have ‘dumped thousands of passengers on the cramped concourse at St Pancras as the season heads towards its summer peak’.

RMT has also begun balloting train managers over the same issues.

"The conditions at St Pancras have been simply appalling in recent weeks with dangerous levels of overcrowding on the concourse as services plunge into meltdown on the cusp of the busiest part of the year. RMT will not tolerate a position where our members are left to pick up the pieces due to corporate failures," said RMT general secretary Mick Cash.

"RMT is escalating this dispute with a ballot of train managers that is now underway and it is now time for Eurostar to get their heads out of the sand, recognise the seriousness of the current situation and come forward with proposals that address the issues our members have been raising with them."

A spokesman for Eurostar said: "Our plan is to run a normal service so that all passengers booked to travel with Eurostar will be able to do so."

Bev

Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.