Rail strikes discussion

[Starmill]

In the case of schoolkids in Trafford attending Knutsford Academy:

There's a 07:03 bus from Altrincham to Knutsford. It takes 1 hour 10 as it runs very indirect vs the 15 minutes the train an hour later would take. So it's possible they'll get there in time. However, the service is usually operated by a 39 seater vehicle. There's obviously the normal passengers already and then we're talking about 50-100 pupils who would normally catch the train. Even if they get to Altrincham Interchange in time for that bus, there's no guarantee they'll be able to board.


In the case of schoolkids in Knutsford attending the schools in the Greenbank area there's no alternative bus service for any morning exams. While there's a 89 bus from Knutsford to Northwich, the first departure for Northwich is 09:10 and the last departure from Northwich is 13:50. It's a bus service for pensioners doing their shopping and attending medical appointments, not one that gets people to work or school.



In the case of a lift, that may mean parents booking a day off work in some cases.

Taxis are usually very limited in availability between 7am and 9am outside the cities. Many taxi companies already have contract work so have very few vehicles for people who call up and book a taxi and some of the latter will already be booked for airport services.



Why does that matter? A failed English or Maths GCSE can prevent entry to a college. Just one missed day during exam season is needed to cause that!

Because it is entirely hyperbolic to suggest that someone is going to simply not bother to attend their exam as a result of there being no train service. I note you've come up with a whole lot of excuses and extremely unlikely events. Exams are important life events. Parents and children make significant sacrifices to get the best out of them. I don't agree personally with so much resting on generally two hour or shorter periods but that's the way it is. Most families who are aware they will have this issue will already have either arranged carpooling, or booked a taxi for early on to get them in two hours before the exam starts. And that's only the ones who can't get in by bus and are too far to walk or cycle.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because it is entirely hyperbolic to suggest that someone is going to simply not bother to attend their exam as a result of there being no train service. I note you've come up with a whole lot of excuses and extremely unlikely events. Exams are important life events. Parents and children make significant sacrifices to get the best out of them. I don't agree personally with so much resting on generally two hour or shorter periods but that's the way it is.

Well, quite. Parents will take a day off work if necessary, or if not given one will pull a sickie. Or if they don't have a car they'll sort a lift with a parent who does. The idea that anyone would miss an exam for this reason is as you say bizarre.

 

[Need2]

Not sure what your argument is

In your original post that I quoted you were insinuating that because the railway was bailed out by the government during the lockdowns then the workers should not expect a pay rise.

 

[windingroad]

Well, quite. Parents will take a day off work if necessary, or if not given one will pull a sickie. Or if they don't have a car they'll sort a lift with a parent who does. The idea that anyone would miss an exam for this reason is as you say bizarre.

I walked five miles to get to an exam once when my travel plans fell through! For something as essential as exams, people will find a way, particularly given they know in advance the strikes are happening.

 

[mandub]

Not sure what your argument is. To their credit the government continued to run air on trains throughout the pandemic and kept railway staff in work.

The point has been made before, but the Govt didn't keep railway staff in work out of some kindness. They made a strategic decision (you may disagree with the decision) to keep the railways running during Covid and designated us as key workers. We were not asked if we wanted to work, or go on furlough. We were instructed to continue working. Fair enough and I was glad to be busy and in work, but it was a Govt choice, not a gift to be repaid by staff at a later date.

 

[WiredUp]

You can book more than 35 hours on Oracle if you have a code to book against.

Sorry Planner what you are saying is technically correct however in practice it doesn't work like that I'm afraid. You can have a project code(s) to book to, and book over 35 hours/week just to prove a point that you are working lots of hours and being spread thinly (this assumes a role clarity contract for example M-F, 9-5 BTW). But if you were to do any hours above that (which a lot of us do all of the time) you won't get paid any extra for for it. There is a lot of pressure on cost centres to remain within their contractual hours.

It has been that way for several years, therefore the opportunities for overtime outside of any public holidays (Christmas, Bank Holidays etc.) are virtually nil. If you had to do a weekend shift instead of a weekday you will have to have time off in lieu - even if you wanted the overtime for arguments sake.

 

[Moonshot]

I think the railway needs to adapt, but I am completely against decimating the railway and completely in favour of the strikes. I don't think change is a dirty word, as long as it doesn't come at the expense of railway workers.

Railway workers generally get redeployed anyway, it's not as if the industry hasn't made changes before. Staff are going on strike , but to be honest, nobody will be forced out of the industry when the inevitable changes come along.

The point has been made before, but the Govt didn't keep railway staff in work out of some kindness. They made a strategic decision (you may disagree with the decision) to keep the railways running during Covid and designated us as key workers. We were not asked if we wanted to work, or go on furlough. We were instructed to continue working. Fair enough and I was glad to be busy and in work, but it was a Govt choice, not a gift to be repaid by staff at a later date.

Had drivers been furloughed, they would have lost their competency

 

[The Planner]

Sorry Planner what you are saying is technically correct however in practice it doesn't work like that I'm afraid. You can have a project code(s) to book to, and book over 35 hours/week just to prove a point that you are working lots of hours and being spread thinly (this assumes a role clarity contract for example M-F, 9-5 BTW). But if you were to do any hours above that (which a lot of us do all of the time) you won't get paid any extra for for it. There is a lot of pressure on cost centres to remain within their contractual hours.

It has been that way for several years, therefore the opportunities for overtime outside of any public holidays (Christmas, Bank Holidays etc.) are virtually nil. If you had to do a weekend shift instead of a weekday you will have to have time off in lieu - even if you wanted the overtime for arguments sake.

Then I agree that is messed up and projects are getting work done for free. If you have to be off costed as part of the role the all the hours should be booked.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

It isn't really to do with being a service industry, it is because railway wages are paid by the taxpayer now, not the farebox or the privatised companies.

Granted the taxpayer is contributing heavily but is not paying all the wages currently 2/3rds is coming from the passenger on operator revenue.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

In the end we're all looking at an agreement around the 5% mark Ala ScotRail but the question is how to pay for it. HMT is looking to reduce subsidy so that horrible word efficiency savings comes up.. translation less staff.

That's the premis I believe the Network Rail and the unions need to negotiate on. As always negotiations don't have a total winner or loser, both sides have to win some and lose some.

 

[yorksrob]

Granted the taxpayer is contributing heavily but is not paying all the wages currently 2/3rds is coming from the passenger on operator revenue.

Indeed. It's really not helpful for people to perpetuate the idea that this is still April 2020 in terms of railway finances.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

Ridiculous idea. Nobody has a duty to pay train fares, when they don't need to travel. In fact, people be encouraged to work from home, for environmental reasons. Office premises aren't going to be converted to housing, but a lot of people need only to come the office one or two days a week for face to face meetings.

Civil servants should lose the London Allowance if they aren't travelling into London daily its basically a salary increase that rail workers can't access

 

[LowLevel]

More likely 37k according to the BBC[1].

That's far in excess of the national average (26k).

It's even worse when you consider many of the jobs are only semi-skilled jobs that require barely any training yet get 33k ("Rail travel assistants - £33,310 - includes ticket collectors, guards and information staff"); nurses averaging 31k and requiring a 3 year degree and expensive professional membership.

1: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/61840077

Oh please. I earn £31k as a guard (the bottom end of the scale admittedly) and had to go through a fairly heavy application process and rely on significant doses of what I would call hard earned life skills to be effective.

Ticket collectors and station staff at my TOC are, with the exception of some senior supervisors and managers, all on less than £26k.

 

[WiredUp]

Then I agree that is messed up and projects are getting work done for free. If you have to be off costed as part of the role the all the hours should be booked.

It sucks sometimes. You just have to take the rough with the smooth and during any quiet weeks back off the accelerator a bit. There aren't many quiet weeks either!

 

[theageofthetra]

The NHS is about to be awarded a pay rise, UNISON has already said anything less than 3% for the nurses is not acceptable, do you agree with that?

Only if their performance an sickness record is good enough.

Hi,
Network Rail worker out of the midlands and TSSA union member.
I will be joining the strike next week in solidarity due to having no pay rise in 3 years.
I meet Mr Grant Shapps only last year and he told me thank you for working through Covid. That thank you clearly does not extent to paying my mortgage, car insurance, gas bill, child care, etc.
I am a band 4 middle manager on £38k.
I get no bonus
I get no overtime
I am meant to work a 35 hour week but don’t think I have ever done less than 45 hours despite only being allowed to book 35 on the company’s internal time sheet.

Network Rail is a dire place to work, let me explain why.
Putting to one side the lack of pay rises and high inflation (real world pay cut) the company is stale.
There is no leadership from above, nor is leadership or enterprise encouraged at any level.
It’s one big burecratic mess that encourages itself to be more bureaucratic under the guises of health and safety.

The comments from conservative mps are from people who have no understanding.
If they had any understanding they would know the first and most important thing they need to do it wipe out the top few layers of management.
From the board down to band 3 level the roles are stuffed with people who adore rule enforcement, bureaucracy, that are risk averse to anything and everything and with no entrepreneurial understanding or dna.
It’s a company destined to fail, that delights in its failures and the failures give the large group of senior management reason to exist and dream up more schemes that profit outside companies at the expense of the taxpayer while having no benefit to passengers.

A few years ago they had a company reorganisation, to make the routes more accountable!
The result? Hundreds of more senior manager roles all on between £60-£150k, all pushing more bureaucracy, less productivity and even more risk adverse.

I would like it if grant shapps and co would spend some time and understand the problem starts with leadership or rather the lack of.

Network rail is in need of a major cull, but it needs to be the large group of senior managers.
The same managers who spent this past week boasting how they are going to earn double time and a lieu day during the strikes for ‘pointing passengers where to go on a platform’.

Network Rail or Great British Railways; whatever you call it until it gets some clear leadership and entrepreneurs running the show and rid of the mass of senior managers laughing at the taxpayer, the sooner it will turn around.

But don’t worry, because next week all of us lucky enough to work on LNW route are being sent pronoun posters so we can talk woke to one another!

Everything that is wrong with a public sector organisation in one post.

Civil servants should lose the London Allowance if they aren't travelling into London daily its basically a salary increase that rail workers can't access

Absolutely, I know some people who joined the Civil service after being made redundant during 2020. They haven't worked one day in a London office and still get a London allowance.

 

[Adrian1980uk]

Being fair to public sector organisations, everytime they invest in anything they have to spend an equal amount of money on working out if they should invest it and if it's best offer and make sure they can prove it was best offer.. there is no risk and reward like private sector

 

[XIX7007177]

Any pay increase will eventually end up back in the treasury anyway. Income tax, NI, VAT, fuel duty and all the other plethora of taxes.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

To the employer. What bugs me about the rail unions is that, judging by their public utterances, they measure the impact on the employer by the impact on customers, as illustrated by the cartoon below:View attachment 116471

That is a fantastic cartoon and has made my day Accuracy on point.

 

[windingroad]

Any pay increase will eventually end up back in the treasury anyway. Income tax, NI, VAT, fuel duty and all the other plethora of taxes.

Well exactly; it's not as if the money disappears into a black hole. It's the same with cost of living payments for those on low incomes: that money goes straight back into the economy as it's used on essentials.

 

[michael74]

Only if their performance an sickness record is good enough.

What has an individuals performance and sickness got to do with it, I am asking if you think the workforce should get +3%

 

[Peregrine 4903]

Hi,
Network Rail worker out of the midlands and TSSA union member.
I will be joining the strike next week in solidarity due to having no pay rise in 3 years.
I meet Mr Grant Shapps only last year and he told me thank you for working through Covid. That thank you clearly does not extent to paying my mortgage, car insurance, gas bill, child care, etc.
I am a band 4 middle manager on £38k.
I get no bonus
I get no overtime
I am meant to work a 35 hour week but don’t think I have ever done less than 45 hours despite only being allowed to book 35 on the company’s internal time sheet.

Network Rail is a dire place to work, let me explain why.
Putting to one side the lack of pay rises and high inflation (real world pay cut) the company is stale.
There is no leadership from above, nor is leadership or enterprise encouraged at any level.
It’s one big burecratic mess that encourages itself to be more bureaucratic under the guises of health and safety.

The comments from conservative mps are from people who have no understanding.
If they had any understanding they would know the first and most important thing they need to do it wipe out the top few layers of management.
From the board down to band 3 level the roles are stuffed with people who adore rule enforcement, bureaucracy, that are risk averse to anything and everything and with no entrepreneurial understanding or dna.
It’s a company destined to fail, that delights in its failures and the failures give the large group of senior management reason to exist and dream up more schemes that profit outside companies at the expense of the taxpayer while having no benefit to passengers.

A few years ago they had a company reorganisation, to make the routes more accountable!
The result? Hundreds of more senior manager roles all on between £60-£150k, all pushing more bureaucracy, less productivity and even more risk adverse.

I would like it if grant shapps and co would spend some time and understand the problem starts with leadership or rather the lack of.

Network rail is in need of a major cull, but it needs to be the large group of senior managers.
The same managers who spent this past week boasting how they are going to earn double time and a lieu day during the strikes for ‘pointing passengers where to go on a platform’.

Network Rail or Great British Railways; whatever you call it until it gets some clear leadership and entrepreneurs running the show and rid of the mass of senior managers laughing at the taxpayer, the sooner it will turn around.

But don’t worry, because next week all of us lucky enough to work on LNW route are being sent pronoun posters so we can talk woke to one another!

Are you seriously suggesting that all management between from Band 3 up is made redundant?

 

[Southern Dvr]

Southeastern High Speed is operating between Ashford Ebbsfleet and St Pancras on Strike Days at what seems like a fairly reasonable frequency. But the last train leaves London at 1730 I gather. Obviously HS1 is a little different to the other routes as it’s not operated by conventional signalling or by Network Rail & the drivers will mostly be in ASLEF.

Now I may be mistaken but I had been led to believe the onboard staff were not allowed to be in a union, although that may be incorrect. Presumably the early shut down is to stop everyone overcrowding the trains?

I have to accompany someone to medical appointment in Great Portland Street on Tuesday morning so am hoping that HS1 is operating because it’s going to cost a pretty penny!

 

[choochoochoo]

Does it mean they get paid but don't have productive work to fill the day?

They are still productive and have full diagrams of work.

 

[Egg Centric]

The benefits of joining a place that calls everyone brother and sister in a totally not weird or creepy way? If I was in this industry, I'd take my chances at the disciplinary hearing.

If you want a totally saccharine creepy place where employees are brother and sister, managers are aunts and uncle, senior managers are grandfather and grandmother and so on try Leon. They're at many terminal stations these days.

These are genuinely official job titles.

They're also not (afaik) unionised.

 

[Starmill]

I'm pretty sure most of HS1's assets are worked on by Network Rail staff under contract.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

MSM? Forum rules required acronyms to be defined please.

When I first saw it, my first thought was "Microsoft Messenger" for some unearthly reason...

 

[Retorus]

But don’t worry, because next week all of us lucky enough to work on LNW route are being sent pronoun posters so we can talk woke to one another!

You really highlighted your ignorance with a red flag with this sentence. Pretty disgusting.

 

[Thumper1127]

On the point about homeworking and the reduced demand for commuter travel, I think it's a real mistake for the railway to try and fight that trend. While I'm firmly pro-strike, one thing the railways does poorly (in my opinion) is adapting to fit the needs of passengers as they are, rather than as the railways wishes them to be. Telling the public that they're travelling incorrectly or that they should be taxed for not using the railways is a road to nowhere.

The smart thing to do is to adapt to new travel patterns, focus on growing leisure travel, and find ways to better reflect daily demand.

Well said. However it would involve an outbreak of common sense! If ever there was an opportunity to promote railways and public transport in general given high fuel costs/environmental concerns, it’s now. The problem is there is little if any strategic vision above.

 

[windingroad]

Well said. However it would involve an outbreak of common sense! If ever there was an opportunity to promote railways and public transport in general given high fuel costs/environmental concerns, it’s now. The problem is there is little if any strategic vision above.

I'd love to be optimistic but yes, you're probably right. As ever with these things it'll be years until any adapting happens, probably once changes to travel patterns become impossible to ignore, at which point it will have manifestly failed to take advantage of the opportunity in time to really capitalise on it.

 

[Thumper1127]

The point has been made before, but the Govt didn't keep railway staff in work out of some kindness. They made a strategic decision (you may disagree with the decision) to keep the railways running during Covid and designated us as key workers. We were not asked if we wanted to work, or go on furlough. We were instructed to continue working. Fair enough and I was glad to be busy and in work, but it was a Govt choice, not a gift to be repaid by staff at a later date.

Totally agree. While it is worth pointing out that rail staff did not suffer redundancies (unlike so many private businesses, including the heating engineer I use whose company he built over 10 years folded) it must not be used as an excuse not to address the current issues. What the answer is to the current situation is a moot point but staff should not have to pay, going forward, for a government decision at the time. Address the issues as they are now, not because what happened during lockdown.