Unions promise to fight bid to make rail staff work weekends

[TheEdge]

Many of those older people remember the interest rates they paid on their mortgages.

On significantly smaller mortgages on large houses sold for thruppence and now worth £750,000. Permit me to not shed too much of a tear for their savings not doing so well.

 

[bramling]

That's an unbalanced assessment of the current situation. For several years now in this country, we have had absurdly low interest rates to maintain our economy on life support. This has benefitted people with mortgages but damaged older people with life savings. Many of those older people remember the interest rates they paid on their mortgages.

Whilst this may be true, compare the values of properties in my road.

1980s - £120,000

2020s - £1,500,000

For the same property.

When prices have inflated to this extent, the impact of IRs on mortgages pales into insignificance.

 

[robert thomas]

Whilst this may be true, compare the values of properties in my road.

1980s - £120,000

2020s - £1,500,000

For the same property.

When prices have inflated to this extent, the impact of IRs on mortgages pales into insignificance.

This depends very much on where you live. Many houses here in South Wales sell for £50,000-£100,000.

 

[underbank]

Certainly being noticed & felt at my place.

There's no shortage of applicants, but it's certainly starting to be found that there's a shortage of quality ones who can meet the required standards. In an industry where there's quite strict requirements for certain roles, this is a problem. Remember that medical requirements will rule a proportion of people out of even applying for certain roles.

Train driver in particular requires a quite specific type of person. Same for certain types of control positions. It is these two areas which are going to experience problems - in many places they already are. This will possibly upset some people here, however salaries are pretty certain to have to rise in order to attract and retain people, if mass shortages of staff are to be avoided.

Trouble is, that if there's a shortage of people with the right qualities, how will rising salaries help? Surely it just moves the few able/capable people around, i.e. moving from one employer to another, which just leaves other employers short-staffed. The answer must be to either improve standards of training/education or for the employer to find ways of utilising staff of lower abilities/qualifications, i.e. to take away the simpler tasks from experienced/qualified staff so they have time to do more complicated/skilled tasks.

 

[bramling]

This depends very much on where you live. Many houses here in South Wales sell for £50,000-£100,000.

Indeed. So another government failing unbalancing the country in this way. One can pay several times the amount for essentially the same property in the south-east. A lot of this is, of course, driven by the London situation, where lots of people seem to have decided they no longer wish to be in London.

 

[WelshBluebird]

This depends very much on where you live. Many houses here in South Wales sell for £50,000-£100,000.

Obviously it depends on exactly where, but that is changing. Longer story below but essentially fairly basic terraced houses (2 up 2 down with an extension) where I grew up in South Wales were in that range 12 or so years ago, but are now easily double that (between £150-£200k). You really cannot ignore the hefty price rises, even in an area where in comparison to the rest of the country houses are still somewhat cheap. For the area they really aren't anymore.

Longer story:
I grew up in the Rhondda and my parents still live there. When my Gran passed away they renovated her old house and moved into that, then sold their old house for about £50k. At the time it needed a hell of a lot of work, so a decent house at the time probably would have been somewhere between that £50k and a £100k range you give. But that was about 12 years ago. A lot has changed since then. Houses in my parents street now regularly go for £150k-£200k. Hell next door which had been empty for 5 years and needed total gutting (the kitchen ceiling had partially caved in and was somewhat open to the elements - just to give you an idea of how much work was needed) went for about £100k last year. The prices really are starting to creep up there. And these are just plain bog standard valleys terraces - 2 up 2 down with an extension. The newer semi detached builds in the area are easily going for £250k-£300k. And of course the 1980's price was a lot less in the same area too (I believe my parents bought their house in the 80's for about £19k, on just my dads pretty average salary at the time), so even though todays price is cheaper than much of the country, the actual percentage increase over the last few decades is probably around the same.

 

[Andypandy1968]

This depends very much on where you live. Many houses here in South Wales sell for £50,000-£100,000.

This depends very much on where you live. Many houses here in South Wales sell for £50,000-£100,000.

Because no one wants to live there

 

[robert thomas]

Because no one wants to live there

That is hardly a helpful comment and shows the contempt some of those in the richer parts of Britain have for the rest of us

 

[lineclear]

Trouble is, that if there's a shortage of people with the right qualities, how will rising salaries help? Surely it just moves the few able/capable people around, i.e. moving from one employer to another, which just leaves other employers short-staffed. The answer must be to either improve standards of training/education or for the employer to find ways of utilising staff of lower abilities/qualifications, i.e. to take away the simpler tasks from experienced/qualified staff so they have time to do more complicated/skilled tasks.

That's the nature of the labour market. In reality, different people are good at different things, and offering better pay and/or conditions will help attract people who would be well suited to a front line railway role but don't currently want to make the jump to shift work, for example.

 

[Mag_seven]

Ok folks it looks like we are done here for the moment.

If the situation changes and a formal announcement (not press speculation of hearsay) is made about bringing Sunday into the working week then please alert a member of forum staff and we will look to have the thread reopened.

thanks all