ScotRail Rip-off

This post was written by David Taylor, a 38 Degrees member from Hillington.

My  name is David and I’m 18. Just a few weeks ago my life took a turn for the worse when I lost my job. I was doing an apprenticeship but my train to work was late so often that I got sacked. No matter how early I turned up to the station, ScotRail always let me down.

I felt angry and powerless – as if there was nothing I could do. But so much has happened in the last few days that I really feel like I have a say now:

• I joined with 20,000 other people and signed a petition calling for Scotland’s Transport Minister, Humza Yousaf, to get tough on ScotRail’s bosses or strip them of their contract.
• Off the back of our huge petition, Humza Yousaf agreed to meet with a few 38 Degrees members to hear their experiences. I went with Aqsa, who keeps missing her classes at college, and Christopher, whose business is suffering because of ScotRail’s delays.
• The transport minister listened to our stories and told us there and then that as a result of our campaign he’d publish a plan to improve Scotland’s trains.
• Our campaign hit the news in a big way. It was covered on radio, TV and made headlines in all the papers.
• Within hours of our meeting with Humza Yousaf, ScotRail’s bosses published their plan to improve the trains.

Now, we all know that a plan doesn’t guarantee we’ll get the change we need. We need action, not just talk. But it is a start. Together we’ve forced a government minister and a huge corporation to take us seriously. This is an amazing result for the 20,000 38 Degrees members who’d had enough with ScotRail and decided to speak up.

So I wanted to say thank you and congratulations, for what you’ve done so far.

But it doesn’t have to stop here. The 38 Degrees Scotland office wants to know what all of us think about the future of this campaign. Is there more we could be doing to pressure Scotrail right now? Or should we wait a few months to see if they improve?

With 38 Degrees, everyone gets a say in what happens next – so please take a few minutes to vote now:

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