Closing summary
Rail firms have announced plans for the mass closure of England’s ticket offices to “modernise” the railway, ramping up the battle with unions and infuriating disability and passenger groups.
The move, pushed by the government to save costs, was confirmed by the industry body, the Rail Delivery Group. Train operators told staff on Wednesday morning of proposals to shut down almost all of the 1,007 remaining offices, bar at the busiest stations, within three years.
The RDG said ticket office staff would move on to station platforms and concourses in “new and engaging roles”. However, many fear job losses, with any guarantees offered over compulsory redundancies in pay talks set to expire at the end of next year.
The RMT union called it “a savage attack on railway workers, their families and the travelling public” and claimed operators had issued statutory redundancy notices affecting hundreds of staff.
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Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care – JK
The Commons business and trade committee has written to Asda co-owner Mohsin Issa asking him to clarify remarks made by the supermarket’s chief commercial officer on fuel pricing, and fire-and-rehire tactics.
The chair of the cross-party committee, Darren Jones, wrote that MPs are “concerned about apparent discrepancies” between Kris Comerford’s evidence on fuel pricing and a Competition and Markets Authority market study published this week.
During his session in front of the committee, Comerford claimed that Asda’s fuel pricing strategy policy had not changed, but the CMA found “a significant weakening of competitive pricing” from Asda.
Asked if Asda were still using fire-and-rehire tactics – when an employer fires an employee and offers them a new, potentially less favourable contract – Comerford said they were “not something that Asda employs.”
However, letters from Asda and the GMB union also published today make the accuracy of this statement unclear. GMB told the ccommittee that Asda had issued the threat of using fire and rehire that Asda characterised as ‘dismiss and reengage’ as ‘a last resort’ in its own letter.
Jones has asked Issa to appear before the committee to discuss these concerns on 19 July.
