Passenger protest against Southern Trains

[Easy 10]

Southern won't back down because they run the franchise and shouldn't have how they operate dictated to by a union who arn't responsible for running the service and have little or no interest in the companies future, only it's members.
The union won't back down because they see it as a potential threat to jobs and care little about the problems their actions may cause the company but more importantly the passengers because they are trying to force their will upon the company and force them to run it their way when it's not their responsibility to do that.
The Government won't step in because the franchise haven't broken their contract, and their proposals don't break that contract either and they have the right to make this change if they see fit, they also won't step in because this is a dispute between a private company and a union

No one comes out well in this and the ones that suffer are the passengers who should be the priority for all sides imo but instead are being used as pawns in this dispute

Good summary.

From a personal point of view, this chaos is only just about to start hitting me now, because (blessedly) I don't rely on SASTA to get to work - but I do usually use them to get to and from the Amex. Perry's clearly got the willies and rightly so. This could have a catastrophic effect if, as looks likely, this carnage extends on throughout the season. The patience of THOUSANDS of fans will start to wear very thin, very quickly if they're regularly held up at Brighton station more than a few times and start missing kickoffs despite trying to build as much SASTA-time into their journey as is possible. Let alone trying to get away from the Amex afterwards when there's about 2 trains an hour.

I'm undecided at the moment what to do. P&R is a (reluctant) option, but I worry how much additional pressure thats going to be put under now, given all this. I'm planning on biking to a few games, shouldn't take more than about 45-55 minutes from Portslade. And thats fine in August. But if the weathers crap and there's really no other straightforward way to make the game without basically writing off your entire day trying to get there and back, I can see myself taking the "stuff it" option and not bothering.

I can count on one hand how many league games I've missed at the Amex up until now, but I fear that could well change this season if this fiasco doesn't get sorted.

 

[clapham_gull]

..they also won't step in because this is a dispute between a private company and a union.

I say that's debatable due to the nature of this "franchise".

It's a management contract - all the ticket revenue goes to the Government. Southern get a fixed fee and simply get fined for cancellations.

Anyone in the know correct me if I'm wrong...

I'd suggest the real reason publicly is that the Government know damn well they f##### up the contract. I suspect privately they are actually calling the shots.

There seems little or no incentive for the operator to improve the service beyond cutting costs.

The irony is that the Government appears to have unwittingly nationalised this "franchise" and simply outsourced the management as "contractors" whilst claiming it has nothing to do with us.....