{"id":791171,"date":"2016-01-07T13:37:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-07T13:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pressandjournal.co.uk\/?post_type=fp&p=791171"},"modified":"2016-01-07T13:37:27","modified_gmt":"2016-01-07T13:37:27","slug":"taxpayers-to-fund-strike","status":"publish","type":"fp","link":"https:\/\/www.pressandjournal.co.uk\/fp\/news\/inverness\/791171\/taxpayers-to-fund-strike\/","title":{"rendered":"Tax payers could be hit with six-figure Caledonian Sleeper strike bill"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"before-the-content-hook-1\" class=\"content-hook\"><\/div><p>Scottish taxpayers could be hit with a six-figure bill to cover the cost of a strike on the Caledonian Sleeper rail service.<\/p>\n<p>Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union staged a 48-hour stoppage to highlight their concerns about various safety issues and brought the service to a halt.<\/p>\n<p>Pickets made their point at stations in Inverness, Fort William, Aberdeen and London Euston.<\/p>\n<p>The sleeper franchise was taken over by Serco from FirstGroup earlier this year.<\/p>\n<p>Under the terms of its contract, the company can submit a claim to the Scottish Government for losses incurred during industrial action.<\/p>\n<p>If it is deemed everything possible was done to avert industrial action, then compensation will be paid.<\/p>\n<p>In the case of the December walkout, it could cost about \u00a3100,000.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesman for Serco said: “We haven’t made any decision about what we’re going to do. Our focus has been trying to resolve the dispute and looking after the guests affected.<\/p>\n<p>“There are just over 1,000 passengers affected and the average fare is about \u00a3100.”<\/p>\n<p>A spokesman for Transport Scotland said: “Any decision regarding compensation would only be taken after full consultation with affected parties including workers’ representatives.”<\/p>\n<p>He added: “We are investing \u00a360million in the Caledonian Sleeper service to help drive up performance and improve service quality including capital expenditure on new sleeper trains.”<\/p>\n<p>The RMT has claimed the disruption was likely to cost more than \u00a3300,000, branding it “a taxpayer-funded bung”.<\/p>\n<p>Serco has clashed with the union over allegations about disconnected smoke detectors, faulty lighting and heating systems, the standard of air conditioning and a claimed lack of hot water in some coaches for hand washing.<\/p>\n<p>RMT general secretary, Mick Cash, said his members simply decided “enough was enough” and they had no option to act “before someone is injured”.<\/p>\n<p>Peter Strachan, managing director of Caledonian Sleeper, said he was extremely disappointed by the disruption – at one of the busiest times of the year.<\/p>\n<p>The union has alleged that the dispute was caused by “penny-pinching on maintenance by Serco, which has allowed a number of major defects to rolling stock to deteriorate to a level where it is unsafe”.<\/p>\n<div id=\"after-the-content-hook-1\" class=\"content-hook\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scottish taxpayers could be hit with a six-figure bill to cover the cost of a strike on the Caledonian Sleeper rail service.","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":773348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"esio_related_content":"yes","esio_send_to_subbed":"","send_to_es":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false},"categories":[24,22],"tags":[466215,632526],"newsletter-control":[],"url":"https:\/\/www.pressandjournal.co.uk\/fp\/news\/inverness\/791171\/taxpayers-to-fund-strike\/","author_name":"Iain Ramage","author_image_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/26f3a755e8500246cd59332a5733fdaa?s=64&d=blank&r=g","featured_image_url":"https:\/\/wpcluster.dctdigital.com\/pressandjournal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/12\/serco-caledonian-sleeper-857x564.jpg","acf":{"curated_content_flag":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.1 (Yoast SEO v21.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tax payers could be hit with six-figure Caledonian Sleeper strike bill<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pressandjournal.co.uk\/fp\/news\/inverness\/791171\/taxpayers-to-fund-strike\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tax payers could be hit with six-figure Caledonian Sleeper strike bill\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scottish taxpayers could be hit with a six-figure bill to cover the cost of a strike on the Caledonian Sleeper rail service. 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