THREE 24-hour strikes have been called on the East Coast Main Line in a dispute over job cuts, working conditions and safety.

The walkouts are set to disrupt travel next Friday, August 26 and the bank holiday Monday August 29.

Overtime is also to be banned during the bank holiday weekend in the row between members of the RMT union and Virgin Trains East Coast.

The union says almost 200 jobs are under threat because of the rail franchise company’s efforts to “bulldoze through a package of cash-led measures that would decimate jobs, working conditions and threaten the safety regime that currently ensures a guard on every train”.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said the strike, which will involve train drivers, guards and station staff, was to protest against the rail franchise’s “cavalier attitude to safety”.

“The company have chosen to treat the negotiations as a game thus far, merely going through the motions of pretending they did not yet know what their plans entailed,” he said. “To behave like that is to treat the union and its members with pure contempt.”

The vote to go on strike was taken earlier this week, with 84 per cent of those voting in the ballot backing industrial action.

“RMT will not sit back while nearly 200 members’ jobs are under threat and also conditions and safety are put at risk,” said Cash.

Virgin Trains has said it will still run a full timetable despite the walkouts.

“With our guarantees that there will be no compulsory redundancies, no impact on safety and a full timetable in place during any action, we urge the RMT not to call a strike which will cost its members pay for no reason, and to rejoin us around the negotiating table,” said managing director David Horne.

It is the latest outbreak of strike action on the railways – the Eurostar has been hit this weekend and staff are due to strike again over the August bank holiday.

The RMT says Eurostar has not honoured a 2008 agreement on working conditions. Two trains between London and Paris have been cancelled on Sunday because of the dispute.