Are we heading for a strike? We could be, as South West Trains has announced plans to trim its workforce by 480 heads.
‘In common with other rail operators we have carried out a review of our cost base to ensure we are operating as efficiently as we can in view of reduced passenger growth and an increasingly challenging economic climate,’ the company announced on its web site.
Interesting term, that ‘reduced passenger growth’ bit. What it means isn’t that passenger numbers are falling, but that they’re still growing – just slightly slower than they were before.
So if it needs these 480 people to cope with present demand, how can it insist that it won’t affect passengers. It will if the rest of the staff go on strike. It will if it means platforms will be deserted and unsafe. It will if it has anything to do with the company’s plans to close ticket offices and force us all to rely on ticket machines, even though they might not sell us the best ticket.
Some of the jobs will be lost through natural wastage as people leave and aren’t replaced, but around 200 other staff who work there now look set to lose their jobs through a mixture of compulsory and voluntary redundancies.
