Commuter and other services are under threat from a series of one-day strikes planned by workers for one of the country's biggest rail firms.

Connex, which runs two franchises serving London from southern England, will be hit by six walk-outs, on 25 January and on 2, 10, 18, 21, and 29 February.

The stoppages were announced by the drivers' union, Aslef, following an overwhelming vote in favour of industrial action in a row over hours and employment relations.

Drivers on Connex South Eastern voted by 388 to 154 in favour - a majority of 71% - while South Central drivers backed strikes by 378 to 81, a majority of 82%.

Mick Rix, the union's general secretary, said: "The massive vote for industrial action shows the frustrations of our members with the tactics of the Connex management - they are saying enough is enough."

The union also announced drivers will ban non-contractual overtime from 25 January.

Strikes will cripple Connex's busy commuter and other services, which run from some of London's biggest and busiest stations, including Victoria.

Shorter working week

The company cancelled a number of services in recent weeks because of a dispute with Aslef which has been running since the end of last year.

Connex maintained talks about a shorter working week of 35 hours had been progressing well, but the union accused the company of stalling.

Connex took legal action just before Christmas over drivers' refusal to work rest days, which had led to cancellations.

The French-owned company carries over 200,000 commuters into London alone every day.

Connex has accused the union of showing "a complete disregard" for passengers and their own members.

Mr Rix predicted that Connex train services would totally shut down on the strike days and added the ban on overtime would also seriously affect services.

'Reasonable and amicable'

Mr Rix said he believed Connex's "long suffering" passengers would sympathise with the drivers and accused the company of trying to run services on the cheap despite receiving huge amounts of taxpayers' money.

Mr Rix said other rail companies had agreed a 35-hour week for train drivers following "reasonable and amicable" negotiations, but this had not happened at Connex.

"Connex has a very bad reputation internally and you can see that from the way they treat the passengers. They treat their staff in the same way."

Mr Rix said he believed Connex would have to employ more drivers and stop relying on overtime.

A Connex spokesman said: "We are saddened our customers are threatened with disruption to their services by industrial action announced by Aslef which was voted for by less than half of our drivers.

"We remain willing to talk to Aslef to try to resolve the issue in the interests of our customers."