Friday, May 27 2016
Decades of festival fun
In pictures: City’s great events over the years - see page 30
Chaos on the rails as dispute continues
Zamora’s off
‘Playing for Albion again meant so much’ - page 61
Brighton Festival Pavilion transformed by stunning light show PHOTOGRAPH: TABATHA FIREMAN/GETTY
Operator claims sickness has soared, union says Southern has ‘chosen to go to war’
Joshua Powling
joshua.powling@jpress.co.uk @BrightonIndy
Southern said its train conductors had collectively taken 1,066 days off sick over the last month following a union dispute. According to the company, sickness levels have doubled since the RMT union started strike action last month, over changes to conductor roles. As a result, an average of 83 trains a day are being
cancelled – with the Brighton to Southampton line particularly under pressure. Southern released the figures this week, in what it called a ‘remarkable and unprecedented level of sickness’ among its conductors. But RMT’s general secretary Mick Cash said the data was ‘pure fiction’ and the company had ‘chosen to go to war’ with its own staff. SEE PAGE 5
The Royal Pavilion was illuminated in a sea of colour, to remember the Indian soldiers who were treated in Brighton after the First World War. The special 10-minute visual performance uses the iconic building as a backdrop, as part of the Brighton Festival event Dr Blighty, and evokes ‘memories of a very distant home’ for the soldiers who were treated at the Pavilion when it was used as a hospital in the war. The first light show was on Tuesday, with an after-dark projection performance every night until Saturday. See page 3.