Rail strikes discussion

[irish_rail]

Aslef members don't want DOO no matter what is put in front of us. Seeing the way that guard was dealt with after the James St incident in Liverpool has made most drivers realise that their liberty is more important than a few extra bucks. The Government can keep dreaming of DOO but it ain't gonna happen.

 

[Signal_Box]

Playing the “key worker in Covid” is frankly tiresome and tedious. Get over it, that’s history now.

Fair enough, playing the nurses, doctors..insert anyone else….deserve a payraise is also tiresome.

Is this thread seriously still limping on ?

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

£1.6bn pre tax profit last year according to Network Rail's own accounts.

Network Rail 2021 statement

From the text of the report (p31):

This year we made a profit before tax of £1.6bn (2019/20: £375m). This improvement was mainly due to the changes in the five-year funding settlement which made allowance for additional renewals activity which we successfully delivered, together with much improved train performance.

I'd guess this is a paper profit from various adjustments within the CP6 settlement, much of which is government grant (subsidy).
There's also the small matter of £54.7 billion debt on the books, which will be magnified by steep interest rates this year.

 

[Darandio]

Fair enough, playing the nurses, doctors..insert anyone else….deserve a payraise is also tiresome.

Is this thread seriously still limping on ?

Limping? Regardless of the repetitive nature of postings on both sides of the camp it's probably the hottest thread in the history of the forum.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Indeed, unfortunately the RMT have already deployed their largest escalation, and have kept nothing in reserve to deploy against the threat of DOO rollout.

DOO all depends on what ASLEF thinks of it.

 

[Jimini]

Limping? Regardless of the repetitive nature of postings on both sides of the camp it's probably the hottest thread in the history of the forum.

Oh I dunno about that; did you read the one about Ian Faletto and the phantom shopping trolley from a few years back?

 

[Bletchleyite]

An indefinite strike

Unlikely, partly because it ceases to be legally protected after 12 weeks, and partly because the staff won't be able to afford it in the context of the economic crunch.

 

[Darandio]

Oh I dunno about that; did you read the one about Ian Faletto and the phantom shopping trolley from a few years back?

I remember the multiple hotly debated threads very well!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Aslef members don't want DOO no matter what is put in front of us. Seeing the way that guard was dealt with after the James St incident in Liverpool has made most drivers realise that their liberty is more important than a few extra bucks. The Government can keep dreaming of DOO but it ain't gonna happen.

I'd only worry about that if you would wilfully and negligently dispatch a train that you could see someone was leaning against, which I'm sure you would not. That guard got everything he deserved. It was, in driver terms, equivalent to a wilful SPAD or wilfully driving a train off that someone was standing in front of.

Are you thinking of the other Merseyrail incident where the guard was not at fault, though I forget exactly what/where that one was?

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

From the text of the report (p31):


I'd guess this is a paper profit from various adjustments within the CP6 settlement, much of which is government grant (subsidy).
There's also the small matter of £54.7 billion debt on the books, which will be magnified by steep interest rates this year.

Look at note 3 the direct govt grant was 1.4B more than the previous year which was supposed to pay for increased mtce and renewals activity. I also like the way they tell us how well they are doing at becoming more efficient yet we have a dispute in which they say everything they do is outdated and needs modernising!

 

[Andyh82]

Unaffordable on the part of the members, surely?

Arriva bus drivers in Yorkshire haven’t done a days work for the best part of 3 weeks now, and they are presumably on less than the average RMT member, so it presumably is possible

 

[HL7]

DOO all depends on what ASLEF thinks of it.

As a current DOO driving ASLEF member I’d hope that any advancement towards further rolling out of DOO in these circumstances would be flatly rejected by the affected members.

Im well aware that the size of the carrot dangled will be a consideration but are the government really going to offer enough to make it a viable proposition given the proclamations of no money. I suppose it’s a possibility that they offer a big package to attempt to get rid of guards permanently and then they can focus on clawing back from the drivers further down the line.

 

[irish_rail]

I'd only worry about that if you would wilfully and negligently dispatch a train that you could see someone was leaning against, which I'm sure you would not. That guard got everything he deserved. It was, in driver terms, equivalent to a wilful SPAD or wilfully driving a train off that someone was standing in front of.

Are you thinking of the other Merseyrail incident where the guard was not at fault, though I forget exactly what/where that one was?

My worry is, in a court of law some fancy barrister is able to argue i am at fault for departing whilst some pi*sed up person falls under my train all in the name of blaming the big bad train driver. DOO scares me and I've no intention of ever working it.

 

[Moonshot]

As a current DOO driving ASLEF member I’d hope that any advancement towards further rolling out of DOO in these circumstances would be flatly rejected by the affected members.

Im well aware that the size of the carrot dangled will be a consideration but are the government really going to offer enough to make it a viable proposition given the proclamations of no money. I suppose it’s a possibility that they offer a big package to attempt to get rid of guards permanently and then they can focus on clawing back from the drivers further down the line.

ASLEF have a charter committment of No More DOO.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Seems the government have just made this a whole lot worse.

The battle has now become a war, at the expense of the passengers and freight customers. Great...

 

[74A]

Posted in error

As a current DOO driving ASLEF member I’d hope that any advancement towards further rolling out of DOO in these circumstances would be flatly rejected by the affected members

The problem is there is not much you can do if you already drive DOO and the company extend it. ASLEF tried that before and got burnt by an expensive court case that cost over 100k.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

As a current DOO driving ASLEF member I’d hope that any advancement towards further rolling out of DOO in these circumstances would be flatly rejected by the affected members.

Im well aware that the size of the carrot dangled will be a consideration but are the government really going to offer enough to make it a viable proposition given the proclamations of no money. I suppose it’s a possibility that they offer a big package to attempt to get rid of guards permanently and then they can focus on clawing back from the drivers further down the line.

GTR OBS's get a pretty reasonable salary for a non safety critical role so other than removing the dependency on a guard to run a service not sure how much savings they really achieved.

 

[HL7]

ASLEF have a charter committment of No More DOO.

It didn’t stop them extending it on the Airdrie-Bathgate route.

 

[bramling]

I'd only worry about that if you would wilfully and negligently dispatch a train that you could see someone was leaning against, which I'm sure you would not. That guard got everything he deserved. It was, in driver terms, equivalent to a wilful SPAD or wilfully driving a train off that someone was standing in front of.

Are you thinking of the other Merseyrail incident where the guard was not at fault, though I forget exactly what/where that one was?

It will still bother some drivers. No one is going to wilfully move a train in that situation, however DOO monitors aren’t wonderful - even on the most modern trains you’re talking about a bank of very small views, with more to focus on the more carriages the train has. There’s always the worry about doing something by mistake. On top of that, many drivers won’t be overly too keen on the prospect of finding themselves at the centre of a Kentish Town, Lewisham or Peckham Rye type incident.

That said, money talks, so a gold-plated pay increase would certainly appeal to some, though worth remembering 40% disappears to the taxman, so non-pay benefits are a factor too.

 

[HL7]

GTR OBS's get a pretty reasonable salary for a non safety critical role so other than removing the dependency on a guard to run a service not sure how much savings they really achieved.

Can the train run without the OBS? The problem scotrail had was that striking guards stopped the service running. The benefits of running with only a driver required are obvious from the TOC perspective.

 

[the sniper]

Indeed. But Aslef were happy at GTR and Greater Anglia weren't they? The general public has no concept of the difference between a guard and an onboard host.

The circumstances really aren't comparable and in the case of Greater Anglia, the outcome is by no means the same.

 

[HuggyB87]

Not sure if it's been covered in this thread - it's moving far to quickly for me to keep up.

Merseyrail workers are to receive a 7.1% pay increase - appears the agreement has only been reached with TSSA - RMT and ASLEF still ongoing, albeit seperate due to the change in working for the 777s

Merseyrail staff given 7.1% pay rise on eve of rail strikes | The Independent

I wander if this wlll apply any weight to the RMT dispute?

 

[Sorcerer]

Not sure if it's been covered in this thread - it's moving far to quickly for me to keep up.

Merseyrail workers are to receive a 7.1% pay increase - appears the agreement has only been reached with TSSA - RMT and ASLEF still ongoing, albeit seperate due to the change in working for the 777s

Merseyrail staff given 7.1% pay rise on eve of rail strikes | The Independent

I wander if this wlll apply any weight to the RMT dispute?

I asked a similar question earlier, and I too wonder how much of a precedent it sets for current negotiations. That said, a 7.1% pay rise won't be the same in Greater London as it is in Merseyside where housing and the cost of living is significantly cheaper.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I asked a similar question earlier, and I too wonder how much of a precedent it sets for current negotiations. That said, a 7.1% pay rise won't be the same in Greater London as it is in Merseyside where housing and the cost of living is significantly cheaper.

It's somewhere around (though slightly higher than) the figure I expected to be agreed, so it's probably fairly significant.

 

[HuggyB87]

I asked a similar question earlier, and I too wonder how much of a precedent it sets for current negotiations. That said, a 7.1% pay rise won't be the same in Greater London as it is in Merseyside where housing and the cost of living is significantly cheaper.

In any London-orientated pay offer, surely you would be looking at 7.1% + London weighting

 

[Bletchleyite]

In any London-orientated pay offer, surely you would be looking at 7.1% + London weighting

If the pay is £Z made up of £X plus £Y London weighting, then the 7.1% would presumably be applied to the total figure, so it would be £Z * 1.071.

 

[dk1]

The circumstances really aren't comparable and in the case of Greater Anglia, the outcome is by no means the same.

Very true. They are still guards at GA & no route that had them previously runs without them now.

 

[Wolfie]

If the pay is £Z made up of £X plus £Y London weighting, then the 7.1% would presumably be applied to the total figure, so it would be £Z * 1.071.

In most of the public sector London weighting payments haven't gone up for years.

 

[skyhigh]

There are still many routes where DOO is still years from any potential introduction (e.g. where Sprinter stock is used)

Why is that a factor? All of our 15x have quietly been upgraded to be ready for door camera fitment over the past couple of years...

 

[Wolfie]

Why is that a factor? All of our 15x have quietly been upgraded to be ready for door camera fitment over the past couple of years...

The digital train upgrades?