NEWS.CATEGORY: Industrial

TPE: Industrial Action short of strike Notification 25 July 22

TSSA has today announced action short of strike for all our members in TrasnPennine Express to take place between 00:01 on Tuesday 9 August to 23:59 on Wednesday 7 September.

All TSSA members are asked to participate in a:

  • Overtime ban
  • Refusal to work rest days
  • Ban on non-rostered staff working weekends and nights
  • Ban on undertaking contingency duties arising from industrial action
  • No mentoring of colleagues including new starters
  • No training of colleagues including new starters
  • No double desking (no carrying out work of absent colleagues and vacancies)
  • Ban on on-call activities including ban on covering vacant on-call lines
  • Ban on out of hours work communication

The action covers the period from 00:01 on Tuesday 9 August to 23:59 on Wednesday 7 September. Please liaise with your reps or Organiser Alan Valentine if you have any questions.


During the period from 00:01 on Tuesday 9 August to 23:59 on Wednesday 7 September TSSA members at TPE can legitimately refuse to:

work overtime, work rest days, work weekends or nights if not rostered, carry out contingency duties such as Driving or conducting Trains, Mentor colleagues including new starters, train colleagues including new starters, double desk (or carry out duties of absent colleagues or vacancies), Carry out on-call activities including covering vacant on call lines, conduct out of hours work communications, such as phone calls, emails, texts, messages etc whilst still carrying out their normal duties.

We are demanding a guarantee of:

  • No compulsory redundancies
  • A pay rise which meets the cost-of-living crisis
  • No unagreed changes to terms and conditions

Despite TSSA officials attending talks with the Rail Delivery Group (the industry body leading on talks for train operators) no offers have been made on the above. In fact, employers and the Department for Transport are now proposing to close ticket offices and change your pensions – on top of all the existing issues!

TSSA continues to fight for better pay and conditions for you at work, including Management grades. Thank you for your response in the recent ballot – this has strengthened our position in talks and there is clear movement, but not enough. That’s why we’re asking you to participate in the above action short of strike from 00:01 on Tuesday 9 August to 23:59 on Wednesday 7 September.

Our membership is still growing and has risen by almost 45% since we first notified the company of our intention to ballot members for industrial action. Therefore, please speak to your colleagues and encourage anyone who is not a member of a trade union to join us today so that they can add to our strength they can easily join here join TSSA online.

TSSA is in the process of re-balloting our TPE members to ensure that we have a mandate to strike following us having one vote short of meeting the governments anti trade union thresholds for strike action. See more information by clicking here but please ensure that you vote once you receive your ballot paper hopefully by this coming weekend!

If you don’t receive a ballot paper by Tuesday 2 August 2022 then please email membership@tssa.org.uk with your name, employer name, job title, Workplace name and current home address so that we can confirm your records are correct and get a ballot paper reissued to you.