Extremely inflexible - businesses need to be able to be demand-responsive, and never seen this issue elsewhere
Even when I worked in retail which is renowned for not treating employees well . Once the roster was posted the week before it couldn't be changed without asking people , we had managers suggest and even try and change it but nobody was ever disciplined for not coming in for a shift that the previously posted roster had them as being off for . If anything when I came to work for a TOC I was subject to shorter notice for my rosters , the agreement was 48hrs , in practice we usually got the roster 3 days ahead . As for not having this issue elsewhere , not many other industries that move trains around so I doubt you would have seen that issue elsewhere .
Sounds like calling off the strike is a way of the union using a loophole to ensure their members get paid and don't have to work. (If the dispute is resolved at the last minute and no further action will be called it's a different matter).
This has been done to death on these forums in the past , its really not used in that way . And if the union did start to use it in that way then there are certain risks with that tactic . It isn't a popular thing to do among members to be honest .
Part of the reason we were told a full service couldn't be run last time a strike day was cancelled at short notice was because timetables could not be ammended/uploaded to industry systems . This is the modern approach that people want ...
So are train operators using strikes to cover shortages in the roster and reduce the availability of overtime? If not surely train drivers would be paid for their working day, even if there's no work for them. In which case no one outside the industry is going to care they don't want to plan to get up early in case they get a call saying stay at home for the day.
I dont know if this applies at Cross country , but some TOC's have used RMT strike days as an opportunity to mark a lot of drivers up to their briefing days , taking them off their booked work (as they can under agreements) and moving them to different book on times for briefing days . Once you have posted a roster reflecting this , unless agreements allow you cannot then change those previously posted rosters back to reflect what the actual timetable requires .
I am sure in the case of those tocs if the strike day for other grades is cancelled last minute then the drivers will still come in and get given parts of jobs that they can do within the hours they have been rostered to .
Doesn't really matter what people outside the indusry think , what matters is that rostering agreements are kept to . Otherwise you risk further worsening industrial relations .