Virgin Trains East Coast to go on three 24 hour strikes

Workers on Virgin Trains East Coast are to protest on three 24 hour strikes in August, including over the bank holiday weekend, the latest in a string of industrial action by rail staff.

The strike will be from 0300 BST on 19, 26 and 29 August, bank holiday Monday.

About 1,800 members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) are involved and are to protest over disputes concerning cuts, work conditions and safety.

The train operator said it is making changes to customer facing roles where a single person will take responsibility on trains. Which will not impact customer safety.

Virgin said the strikes will not affect the train timetable.

Virgin Trains managing director, David Horne, said: "With our guarantees that there will be no compulsory redundancies, no impact on safety and a full timetable in place during the walk-outs, these strikes will cost RMT members pay for no reason, and we urge the union to rejoin us around the negotiating table."

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said members of the union would "not tolerate the cavalier attitude to safety that is now on show as the company mobilises its scab army of managers".

"The company have chosen to treat the negotiations as a game thus far, merely going through the motions of pretending they did not yet know what their plans entailed. To behave like that is to treat the union and its members with pure contempt."

RMT members from Virgin Trains voted by 84% to strike last week.

The strike is the latest in a string of industrial action by rail staff. On Thursday staff at Eurostar walked out over a dispute over work-life balance for about 80 managers and will walk out again over the bank holiday as well. Members from Southern Rail walked out for five days over the role of conductors.

Vrigin operates the InterCity East Coast franchise on the east coast mainline between London, Yorkshire, the north-east of England and Scotland. The company, which has the contract until March 2023, is a joint venture between FTSE 250-listed Stagecoach, which owns 90% and Virgin Group which owns the remaining 10%.

Shares in Stagecoach were up 3.46% to 217.88p at 1505 BST.