Govia Thameslink Railway has started a legal action to challenge the strike ballot of train drivers by their union ASLEF.
The company, which runs Southern, Thameslink and Gatwick Express services, issued papers at the High Court yesterday (Thursday 19 May).
The case targets the ASLEF ballot of Southern and Gatwick Express train drivers for industrial action.
The ballot is in addition to the continuing dispute with the RMT union which led to the strike on Wednesday (18 May) by Southern conductors.
Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) said that the main grounds for the injunction were that GTR believes that ASLEF has selected which drivers it has balloted in a way that breaches the strict rules on balloting.
And that, because it induced drivers to refuse to drive trains in advance of conducting the ballot, it cannot now lawfully ask them to take industrial action.
GTR said: “We only launch legal action reluctantly but it is our responsibility to do everything we can to seek to protect our passengers against further industrial action.”
The latest challenge comes after the GTR won an injunction on Friday 22 April to enable the introduction of 12-carriage Gatwick Express services.
The High Court is expected to hold a full hearing of the GTR claim next week, the company said.
Since winning the injunction, GTR has been introducing the 12-carriage Gatwick Express services. The company intends to run 50 per cent of weekday Gatwick Express trains with 12 carriages by the end of June.
