Caledonian Sleeper strike to go ahead

The RMT has confirmed another strike on Caledonian Sleeper this week, which will coincide with COP26 in Glasgow. RMT members will walk out from 11.59 on Thursday and return to work at 11.58 on Saturday. After the last strike at the start of COP26 the RMT claims there has been a 'marked increase in the bullying and harassment of staff' which the union says has been 'deliberately engineered' to undermine morale. ‎The union's general secretary Mick Lynch said: 'Caledonian Sleeper have had adequate time to come up with a fair pay settlement for this key group of Scotland's rail workers as COP26 enters its second week. Instead, they have kicked the can down the road and left us with no option but to go ahead with this latest phase of action from Thursday. We know that these strikes will close rail services in and out of Scotland but the blame for that lies with SERCO and the political leadership at Holyrood.' Caledonian Sleeper said: 'We will update guests due to travel on the proposed strike dates of any changes to their journey as soon as we can, and we will do all that we can to minimise disruption.'

Network Rail launches BAME careers competition

Network Rail has launched a competition to publicise some of the Information Technology careers which are on offer to young people from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic backgrounds at Network Rail and in the wider rail industry. Network Rail said it hoped that the competition will encourage more young people from minority ethnic backgrounds to consider a career in Information Technology, Science, Technology Engineering, and Mathematics. At the moment, all these are currently under-represented by 'BAME' employees, because just 9.38 per cent are from such backgrounds. The competition challenges young people to use their creative and technical skills to invent something new or innovative. They will be asked to think about how their idea would be used, what its purpose would be, who would use it, how to make it safe and secure, and how technology would bring it to life.