Workers at FirstGroup's SWR to strike for most of December

Commuters and holiday travellers in south London, Surrey and much of southern England could be in for a difficult December, as South Western Railway staff announced their intention to walk out for a month from 2 December on Tuesday.

The RMT union members would only fully return on 2 January, although they said they would also work on 12 December for the general election, and were not striking on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, although no services are scheduled to run on the two bank holidays anyway.

Union bosses said South Western Railway’s “unremitting failure to give assurances that their new operational model won’t move to driver controlled operation, with the role of the guard butchered completely, means the union has been left with no alternative but to call further industrial action”.

The union and the company, which is a joint venture 70% owned by FTSE 250 passenger transport operator FirstGroup and 30% by Hong Kong firm MTR Corporation, have been locked in a long-running dispute over the future of the role of guards on trains.

“At the last meeting we held with SWR principles in agreements were made in good faith with the company’s negotiating team and we now feel hugely let down again,” said RMT general secretary Mick Cash.

“As long as the company continues to refuse to give assurances on the future operational role of the guard we will remain in dispute.”

A similar long-running dispute over the role of guards on Southern services saw millions of journeys on Southern - part of the Go-Ahead joint venture Govia Thameslink Railway - disrupted in 2016 and 2017.

As at 1553 GMT, shares in FirstGroup were up 0.08% at 128.10, having recovered from losses earlier in the session.