More than 3,000 SET users objected to the company’s proposals to slash booking office hours during a statutory consultation held by the company earlier this year.

However, the company has not yet dropped plans to reduce by 60 the number of ticket-issuing machines in booking offices, and the union’s 100 booking-office members will strike next Monday (December 5) over the continuing threat to jobs.

“It is a huge step in the right direction that the plans to cut booking-office hours have at least been shelved, and of course we welcome that,” RMT general secretary Bob Crow said today.

“However, that decision will be meaningless if the company goes ahead with the associated plans that would seriously reduce the number of machines that booking-office staff use to issue tickets.

“Thousands of SET passengers and the key passenger groups made it quite clear that they wanted to see more staff on stations, not fewer, and it is a positive step to recognise that fact.

“The company is defying logic if it presses ahead with its plans to replace booking-office equipment with automated foyer machines, because the result will be the same – fewer staff, longer queues and missed trains.

“The logical step for SET is to shelve these plans and negotiate a sensible solution that maintains the level of staffing and service that passengers want and our members demand,” Bob Crow said.