Northern rail strike ?

[wigwamman]

Anyone heard that the Rmt are to ballot northern rail staff for industrial action over the use of agency staff on their network ?

 

[hairyhandedfool]

The RMT are talking about balloting members, management are apparently in dialogue with the union and one of the issues, seemingly the main one, is an alleged increase in use of agency staff.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

The RMT are talking about balloting members, management are apparently in dialogue with the union and one of the issues, seemingly the main one, is an alleged increase in use of agency staff.

No alleged about it, there has been a large increase. On the East they have been trialing using Trainpeople.co.uk and on the west G4s have now got over 140 members of staff on Practically Minimum wage with about 40 on Zero hour contracts.

The main point (from myself as a Guards point of view) is the use of Agency staff to do traditional railway jobs (Gateline etc.) when Jobs like that has always been used traditionally as a means for someone like a guard/driver who can no longer do safety critical work through no fault of there own (Ill health, injury etc.) to stay in employment. By taking this option away and employing the likes of G4s they can put someone who has had years of service on the scrapheap and put an agency member of staff there.

But that would just be the beginning

Would any of you like to see G4s on Trains?

That would be next

You will end up travelling on a very unskilled and unsafe railway through cost cutting and the only people to benefit would be the shareholders.

I really hope this gets sorted soon amicably otherwise this could get very long and drawn out, Morale in most Northern Depots is at rock bottom anyway (I know for a fact the Manchester ones are) and we see this at yet another attempt at Northern to belittle and punish Traincrew.

I do not want to vote for A Strike but this time it would be a cert if takks are not successful.

So if it does come down to a Strike, my sympathies for people whos lives will be disrupted but this time its not about money

Its about our future.


Just found this on the website, from what I have been told only a small portion has been resolved

Our Ref: BR2/14/2

30th January 2013

Dear Colleague

BREAKDOWN IN INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS – NORTHERN RAIL

As you may be aware, your union representatives have been attempting to resolve a number of issues at Northern Rail which have been cause for concern amongst our members over a number of months.

Despite the efforts of your representatives tackling these matters through the machinery of negotiation, they remain unresolved. The company is not showing any willing signs that progress can be made on these issues and that our members’ concerns are being properly addressed.

The issues are as follows:

· Casualisation and Breach of Agreements

· Use of the agency Trainpeople.co.uk

· Failure to agree on terms and conditions, including:

o PTR&R regarding promotion

o Travel tickets for non-safeguarded first aiders

· Introduction of swipe cards at stations without consultation

· Roster issues within the Engineering and Fleet grades

· Disciplinary procedures when dealing with drunk and/or disgruntled passengers

· Other issues regarding social media sites

In this regard, the matter has been subject to recent consideration by your union’s Executive Committee and the decision has been taken to inform Northern Rail management that a dispute situation now exists between our two organisations over these issues. Therefore, I have informed the company that we are in dispute and that we will remain in dispute until all of the above issues are resolved to our satisfaction. Further, I have advised the company that your union representatives remain available for further talks to try and resolve this matter. At the time of writing, I have not received a response from the company.

In accordance with the above, your union representatives are in the process of arranging meetings within our affected members areas and depots to discuss these issues further and answer any questions or concerns from the membership. The meetings will be addressed by your Lead Officer, Assistant General Secretary and members of the union’s Executive Committee. I would like to take this opportunity to ask our members to make every effort to attend the meetings and to contact the South Shields Office on 0191 456 1308 for further details.

Additionally, a meeting will be held at the union’s Head Office on Monday 25th February 2013 with your Company Council Representatives, Lead Officer and members of the union’s Executive Committee to discuss the next course of action to be taken on this very important matter.

I will, of course, keep you fully advised on any further developments.

Best wishes.


Bob Crow

General Secretary

 

[Tomonthetrain]

Good for you ANorthernGuard. The way Northern are going looking at what you have said make themselves look like they deserve everything they get.

I would rather have someone, like a guard or similar, who knows the tickets, than a agency worker who's not aware whatsoever.

You and your colleagues do valuable work and people should remember that without guards and conductors, the railway would come to a standstill.

I wholly support the guards over this

 

[mac]

Good for you ANorthernGuard. The way Northern are going looking at what you have said make themselves look like they deserve everything they get.

I would rather have someone, like a guard or similar, who knows the tickets, than a agency worker who's not aware whatsoever.

You and your colleagues do valuable work and people should remember that without guards and conductors, the railway would come to a standstill.

I wholly support the guards over this

Why would the railway come to a standstill without guards and conductors? I am sure I have been on trains in the south that are driver only and they seem to manage.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The RMT are talking about balloting members, management are apparently in dialogue with the union and one of the issues, seemingly the main one, is an alleged increase in use of agency staff.

What is wrong with agency staff as long as they are trained to do the job let them get on with it, most other companies us them with no problems.

 

[yorkie]

Why would the railway come to a standstill without guards and conductors? I am sure I have been on trains in the south that are driver only and they seem to manage

So you can convert all these lines to driver only operation in the space of a few days/weeks? Good luck with that

But please, let's not turn this into yet another thread about DOO. It's been done to death! Can we leave it there, please?

What is wrong with agency staff as long as they are trained to do the job let them get on with it, most other companies us them with no problems.

I take it you've never encountered G4S staff? The idea that they are adequately trained is laughable.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

Why would the railway come to a standstill without guards and conductors? I am sure I have been on trains in the south that are driver only and they seem to manage.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


What is wrong with agency staff as long as they are trained to do the job let them get on with it, most other companies us them with no problems.

ahh Driver only, no comment on that travesty

and maybe if you just read a few pages on here you will see quite quickly why agency staff are not a very good idea anyone who uses Manchester Piccadilly or Victoria will testify to that.

 

[dk1]

No DOO on Northern. No guard No go.

 

[mac]

Is it just northern I am sure I saw an agency looking for staff for transpennine at Hull about 3 weeks ago

 

[ANorthernGuard]

Is it just northern I am sure I saw an agency looking for staff for transpennine at Hull about 3 weeks ago

From what I know at Piccadilly they do use an agency for dispatch but that is all (at Picc anyway)

 

[185]

There's possibly concerns about despatch being contracted out in the future.

 

[northwichcat]

Related to this Northern Rail have expressed concerns that TPE's recruitment program will result in existing Northern staff leaving for TPE:

Northern Rail also has concerns with the recruitment of additional drivers by Transpennine in order to deliver these proposals. Transpennine will be recruiting a large number of additional train crew to facilitate the introduction of the proposed service structure and we anticipate this will have a direct impact on our train crew resource base if some of our existing train crew are offered positions with Transpennine. Considering the time taken to train new drivers, Northern and its successor franchise could be saddled with a significant training and recruitment cost and an increase in train service cancellations whilst drivers are replaced. We do not believe that Northern can be expected to carry such a high level of surplus drivers to mitigate this risk.

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/s17-tpe-response-northern.pdf
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

G4S excellence on show this morning 9am at Man Vic. Taking tickets off passengers leaving them to get on Metrolink without their tickets facing £100 fines. They were told to stop doing this in 2010.

Taking tickets off people before they've started their journey is just plain stupid though. Everyone could just buy a ticket to the next stop and say the ticket inspector took my ticket. Have you reported what they were doing back to Metrolink?

I preferred the show when the G4S Metrolink inspector at Victoria (who was on his own) was lying down asleep on the bench on the Metrolink platform and everyone was just going about their usual business without G4S interference.

 

[island]

Taking tickets off people before they've started their journey is just plain stupid though. Everyone could just buy a ticket to the next stop and say the ticket inspector took my ticket. Have you reported what they were doing back to Metrolink?

You may have misunderstood. The passengers had started their journeys, but I understand the concern to relate to passengers arriving at a Manchester station with a ticket to Manchester CTLZ (0451) and having their tickets taken under the misconception that they had no further validity, even though they are valid to certain tram stops.

 

[Anvil1984]

Northern seem to be outsourcing everything at the moment. Station revenue protection duties to these agencies (G4S is back to FNW but Trainpeople is a recent Northern introduction and are about as useful as a yukka plant in some places), Unpaid Fares Notices now go to IRCAS instead of in-house (a recent change a month ago or so), And some of the legal stuff now has went to Dickinson Dees.

The staff are upset too because we are not being backed up in cases involving drunk passengers, the company line is we have to take them as we have a duty of care, however if you look at the Merseyrail part of the documentary they are completely the opposite (please don't bring the recent tragic case into this)

Once again this is not about pay, its more about the company trying to squeeze every peeny out of the franchise

 

[northwichcat]

You may have misunderstood. The passengers had started their journeys, but I understand the concern to relate to passengers arriving at a Manchester station with a ticket to Manchester CTLZ (0451) and having their tickets taken under the misconception that they had no further validity, even though they are valid to certain tram stops.

Ah that one then. There's sometimes two sets of G4S people at Victoria (one contracted by Northern and one contracted by Metrolink) and the same G4S employees finish up doing both jobs and making different mistakes.

 

[island]

My personal bugbear is the one who says a London Terminals to Manchester Stns ticket is not valid to board a train at Manchester Piccadilly platforms 13-14.

 

[northwichcat]

Northern seem to be outsourcing everything at the moment.

I do think Northern should have enough full time staff to cover regular duties. However, what would the staff actually like to happen when there is additional resource required on a temporary basis?
* In the past using managers to fill in for train crews has not been looked on favourably by unions.
* Asking G4S to provide revenue protection only when special events are on would be even worse than at present. They'd finish up being rusty on the few things they do know.
* A lot of staff sitting around spare most of the time isn't economically viable.
* Cancellations are obviously not popular with passengers.
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

My personal bugbear is the one who says a London Terminals to Manchester Stns ticket is not valid to board a train at Manchester Piccadilly platforms 13-14.

Aren't the G4S staff now at platforms 10-11 which leads to platforms 13-14 from the main entrance?

 

[Mugby]

Surely no one needs to be reminded about the 2012 Olympic security shambles.

When G4S were using people with no training of any sort and even illegal immigrants!

 

[Tom C]

I have had experience of this down South and I am in total support of what the guys at Northern are doing and hope that it filters down to the other TOC's that the use of agency staff is doing nothing but harming your business and lowering staff morale which these days is widespread.

The staff being bought in are poorly trained and have a don't care attitude purely because they may spend one or two days at a station or in a booking office then move on.

A great example is Southern. They have spent a not insignificant amount putting in gatelines across South London, Surrey and Sussex which in my mind isn't the worst investment but then they go and staff virtually all of the gatelines with staff from an agency. They are not ticket trained and are not authorised collectors so when passengers go to the gateline without a ticket they simply let them through the gates to buy a ticket from the ticket office which of course the vast majority don't do which makes a nonsense of the whole thing and makes the investment completely wasted. At the beginning the gates would have served as a deterant however people soon cottoned on to the fact that the staff are powerless and you see every day that this is being exploited.

What they SHOULD have done from the start is staff the gatelines properly with trained staff who can deal with ticketless travel effectively giving the gates purpose which would be supplimented by the traditional revenue protection on trains and to support the gateline in local exercises.

It is a slippery slope. If the TOC's are allowed to carry on this road we will be left with a railway with staff who have no training or interest in the job and an industry where the right people will simply ignore because the pay and conditions are poor not to mention the fact that you will have a zero hours contract which guarentees you no work at all!

The greedy TOC's are going down this road because they can get away with not having to pay proper wages, not give proper conditions, not give travel concessions, not giving these people a proper pension, not paying national insurance etc etc and is certainly not done to improve customer service but to run a railway on the cheap.

Good luck to you all!

 

[MacRae13]

It really would be a step in wrong direction.

Gate-line staff can give a lot of good advice about travelling, passenger needs, station facilities, etc. I can just imagine the difference between that and agency staff who are on that particular job on an infrequent basis and don't view themselves as part of the railway with no incentive to increase their knowledge.

And that's just to mention the impact on passengers. I haven't touched on the effect on the TOC or it's staff.

 

[O L Leigh]

Related to this Northern Rail have expressed concerns that TPE's recruitment program will result in existing Northern staff leaving for TPE:

http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/pdf/s17-tpe-response-northern.pdf

Just with specific regard to this point.

Northern Rail have just demonstrated with this quote their mismanagement of their staffing situation. Losing traincrew to other operators is not a new problem for them and actually pre-dates their own involvement. They are in the same slightly unenviable position of being a "feeder" company for other operators, just the same as London Midland and some of the London commuter operators. If they haven't got a rolling programme of recruitment and training by this time I should be very surprised indeed, because without one they will lose control over their own staffing. Hiding behind press releases that blame other TOCs for taking away their staff is simply ridiculous.

O L Leigh

 

[tbtc]

Hiding behind press releases that blame other TOCs for taking away their staff is simply ridiculous

This is what happened with ATN and GNER - the longer distance TOC were able to cherry-pick staff from the "local" TOC and offer a better wage (causing large numbers of ATN services to be cancelled due to shortages).

That's why I'm against having multiple TOCs in an area, it just leads to instability as staff chase the money (and staff/ Unions play one TOC off against another), leaving vacancies that take a long time to be filled.

 

[dmacw]

and maybe if you just read a few pages on here you will see quite quickly why agency staff are not a very good idea anyone who uses Manchester Piccadilly or Victoria will testify to that.

It's been very good of them to let me through on production of my staff travel pass (from a SE based TOC) (Just to clarify - I do have a valid ticket as well)

 

[hairyhandedfool]

No alleged about it, there has been a large increase. On the East they have been trialing using Trainpeople.co.uk and on the west G4s have now got over 140 members of staff on Practically Minimum wage with about 40 on Zero hour contracts....

I wasn't sure of the numbers, so I had to say allegedly.

....What is wrong with agency staff as long as they are trained to do the job let them get on with it, most other companies us them with no problems.

If they are trained (properly) to do the job and are used 'as required' to fill gaps left by temporary shortages of TOC staff, there is nothing wrong. There are two problems with the current situation though.

1) Agency staff are being used on a permanent basis.
2) Agency staff are not trained properly.

 

[Ferret]

Hiding behind press releases that blame other TOCs for taking away their staff is simply ridiculous.

Although, something does need to be done about the current state of affairs where the likes of LM continually spend thousands on training a driver, only for him to scarper ASAP to XC/Freight/whoever doesn't have 8 hours of stop-start work per day. Ultimately, it's unfair and unsustainable.

 

[northwichcat]

Although, something does need to be done about the current state of affairs where the likes of LM continually spend thousands on training a driver, only for him to scarper ASAP to XC/Freight/whoever doesn't have 8 hours of stop-start work per day. Ultimately, it's unfair and unsustainable.

Well if that was put forward to the government what they'd probably introduce a train driving qualification where the trainee driver gets a student loan instead of a salary and then it's repaid through pay deductions.

 

[Ferret]

Or, the 'poaching' TOC could be forced to reimburse the likes of LM some of the cost of the training....

 

[michael769]

Although, something does need to be done about the current state of affairs where the likes of LM continually spend thousands on training a driver, only for him to scarper ASAP to XC/Freight/whoever doesn't have 8 hours of stop-start work per day. Ultimately, it's unfair and unsustainable.

The traditional approach to this problem is to impose a minimum post training service requirement (2 years traditionally) which if not met requires that the employee repays the training costs.

 

[northwichcat]

Or, the 'poaching' TOC could be forced to reimburse the likes of LM some of the cost of the training....

I'm not sure 'poaching' is the right word unless operators like TPE/XC are contacting Northern/LM staff to invite them to apply opposed to advertising a position that's an improvement on said employee's current one.

In theory you could say if a driver leaves for a new operator within 5 years then the new operator has to pay a proportional fee relating to how recently the training was undertaken. However, what would have happens when franchises end or are reorganised etc.?

 

[Oswyntail]

I do like the use of a traditional dispute tactic. Without commenting on the validity or otherwise of any of the claims at issue, I do think that lumping them all together into one "dispute" is a tad rich. Should someone who doesn't give a stuff about agency use but feels passionately about swipe cards (two random choices) feel the union is right or wrong? This is surely a simple tactic to maximise unrest.