TRAIN passengers face significant disruption on Barrhead services as conductors stage strike action.

Rail union RMT has confirmed conductors will strike for six Sundays over payments for rest day working.

RMT said more than 75 per cent of members voted to strike and it has instructed them not to book on for any shifts that start on April 4, 11, 18 or 25, as well as May 2.

This means services between Barrhead and Glasgow, Kilmarnock, Dumfries and Carlisle will be cancelled.

The union will give notice of further Sundays of action if no agreement is reached, adding that the strike will go ahead in a fight for “equality and justice over enhanced payments for rest day working”.

ScotRail said the strikes are a bid to force an increase in overtime payments at a time when the company is facing its worst ever financial crisis.

David Simpson, ScotRail's operations director, added: “A strike about an increase in overtime pay in the middle of a global pandemic is wrong and is forcing many key workers to find alternative and much less convenient ways of travelling to work.

“The railway is in the middle of the biggest financial crisis in its history and the government has made it clear there is no extra money available over and above the nearly half a billion pounds in emergency funding we have already received.

“The people who will suffer most because of this strike are those key workers who depend on trains to get into work to perform their life-saving duties.

“Rather than taking action that puts people off using the railway, we all need to work together to attract more passengers to our services and start getting money in the door again. That’s the only thing that will provide genuine long-term job security for our staff.”