It's all being put on hold anyway, the company and union are due to talk about it so it at least shows the RMT are willing to discuss the issue. Had an email from them stating while they were officially in dispute with SWR a ballot would only be taken as a last resort.
An article by the Guardian suggests they (the DFT) don't have the numbers and were going to ask the TOCs to dress their own staff in the volunteer tabards to save face.
UK rail bosses rejected call to dress staff like face-mask volunteers
Request came after Grant Shapps’ ‘army of journey makers’ in purple tabards failed to materialisewww.theguardian.com
It's good to see that both sides are willing to discuss things, the initial tone from the RMT did come across as a little harsh (which I know is fairly typical for them).
Such a tone is likely to cause a positive response from some but also a negative response to the RMT from others, as has been seen on this thread.
I'm sure that it's possible for someone to put into a letter, which is likely to end up in the public domain at some point, all the RMT buzz words but create less of a negative response towards the RMT from a wider audience.