Gatwick Express Industrial Relations

[hello]

it might be worth noting that, until the pigs arrived the max was 9 coaches for doo

 

[Bishopstone]

You know it's funny, at other TOC's where the company talks to the unions, discusses their plans, and safe methods of working are agreed nothing like this ever happens.

Which TOCs were you thinking of, here?

 

[Minilad]

And, to be clear, I have no truck with the more antagonistic elements of management.

However, the excuse that "we've being doing the job for years" doesn't wash with me either. No progress can ever be made with that attitude.

By progress I take it you mean pay cuts, longer working hours, less safe practices, rules cast aside, and many other things management would like to enable more profits to be made and more bonuses to be "earned"

And to suggest there isn't much cooperation between management and unions on the railway is, quite frankly, ridiculous. There is far more of that than you want to believe as the vast vast majority of disputes get solved without any form of action at all

 

[Agent_c]

And, to be clear, I have no truck with the more antagonistic elements of management.

However, the excuse that "we've being doing the job for years" doesn't wash with me either. No progress can ever be made with that attitude.

There is an element of both. If a team has been doing a task one way for a very long time, there's probably a very good reason why they're doing it that way; but too much rigidity prevents the actual innovations and improvements that could be made from being made.

Best approach has to be one where both sides are willing to listen. One side explains why its done that way, the other side explains the proposed improvements and how the concerns are addressed. Doesn't always work, sticks in the mud will always stick in the mud... but when it does work you block "bad" "Imrprovements" and make what changes are made potentially better as those with real insight can help shape them.
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By progress I take it you mean pay cuts, longer working hours, less safe practices, rules cast aside, and many other things management would like to enable more profits to be made and more bonuses to be "earned"

He didn't say that at all, and its dishonest of you to suggest that he did.

 

[Minilad]

There is an element of both. If a team has been doing a task one way for a very long time, there's probably a very good reason why they're doing it that way; but too much rigidity prevents the actual innovations and improvements that could be made from being made.

Best approach has to be one where both sides are willing to listen. One side explains why its done that way, the other side explains the proposed improvements and how the concerns are addressed. Doesn't always work, sticks in the mud will always stick in the mud... but when it does work you block "bad" "Imrprovements" and make what changes are made potentially better as those with real insight can help shape them.
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He didn't say that at all, and its dishonest of you to suggest that he did.

Well what other sort of "progress" could be meant. Because if it was "progress" that was of benefit to the workforce then there would be no dispute.

 

[bnm]

By progress I take it you mean pay cuts, longer working hours, less safe practices, rules cast aside, and many other things management would like to enable more profits to be made and more bonuses to be "earned"

And we have that on the railways? Pay in the guard and driver grades since privatisation has galloped ahead of inflation. Working hours have reduced.

As for there being less safe practices and rules cast aside, the accident statistics don't bear that out. No passenger fatalities attributed to rail industry failings since February 2007. Employee death and injury statistics are static in the last few years and have fallen significantly since privatisation.

But then some will insist they are still in a poorly paid industry where management play fast and loose with peoples lives. :roll:

I'm no fan of the privatisation model we have on National Rail, but many railway grades have done rather well out of it. What surprises me is their default position remains set at 'moan'.

 

[Minilad]

As for there being less safe practices and rules cast aside, the accident statistics don't bear that out. No passenger fatalities attributed to rail industry failings since February 2007. Employee death and injury statistics are static in the last few years and have fallen significantly since privatisation.

My point exactly. There hasn't been any reduction in these things because the unions and the workforce fight against it.

 

[ComUtoR]

And we have that on the railways? Pay in the guard and driver grades since privatisation has galloped ahead of inflation. Working hours have reduced.

Pay has jumped due to market forces and that the railways was not an attractive job.

Working hours have been reduced because working long hours driving a train was, and is, considered dangerous and a risk.

As for there being less safe practices and rules cast aside, the accident statistics don't bear that out. No passenger fatalities attributed to rail industry failings since February 2007. Employee death and injury statistics are static in the last few years and have fallen significantly since privatisation.

And is that because the railway has made improvements and that the union has been pushing for safer and safer working practices and act, in part, as an industry watchdog ?

I'm no fan of the privatisation model we have on National Rail, but many railway grades have done rather well out of it. What surprises me is their default position remains set at 'moan'.

The default position is not "moan" that is a misconception. Just as much as the misconception that you are anti-[insert whatever]

 

[313103]

And we have that on the railways? Pay in the guard and driver grades since privatisation has galloped ahead of inflation. Working hours have reduced.

I'm no fan of the privatisation model we have on National Rail, but many railway grades have done rather well out of it.

Sadly you have forgotten to mention that Guards have also been forced out of jobs and therefore unemployment, or like me forced to move 200 miles west to get work as a dispatcher on £21,000. So this Guard (oops sorry FORMER Guard) hasnt done rather well out of it.

 

[XDM]

Yes but you got a £50,000 pay off from Silverlink too & a new job. The forum will only work well if we try to tell it like it is,not use it to bang a drum.

 

[LowLevel]

I hate DOO and those who have the intention of introducing it, whether through the long game of DCO (where are those former GatEx Senior Conductors come on board hosts now?) or immediately.

However I wouldn't say I have a poor relationship with the management. Far from it at my TOC. I work with them and engage with them frequently. I pop into the office to say hi most weeks and they send me a Christmas card. I'm not afraid to tell them when I'm happy and when I'm not, and I appreciate being employed by the company so I work hard and do my best by them.

What I do expect is for them to say 'we want to do x. Our reasons for doing so are y. This will achieve z.'. They invariably do not. This is endemic among railway managers. Plans appear without warning and without explanation.

If they're doing something to save money then it would be nice to be told. Instead given plans are introduced with no explanation that on the face of it are bad for the staff, you can expect the staff to determine that the worst possible scenario is at hand as there is no reason for no explanation otherwise. This then leads to fights.

It is a problem on both sides. I find the RMT despite being a committed member to be too fond of rubbish rhetoric and picking stupid fights over irrelevant things. However on DCO/DOO I think the unions have belatedly got it right.

I believe management gurus call it 'change management'. Funnily enough both railway management and the Government are crap at it.

 

[Domh245]

Yes but you got a £50,000 pay off from Silverlink too & a new job. The forum will only work well if we try to tell it like it is,not use it to bang a drum.

1) 313103 (assuming this is the same person that I recognise from elsewhere) left London Overground, not Silverlink.

2) He also had to move far away from where he was, hardly ideal if you were settled down in London.

3) Not everyone will have been as lucky as him.

 

[HLE]

By progress I take it you mean pay cuts, longer working hours, less safe practices, rules cast aside, and many other things management would like to enable more profits to be made and more bonuses to be "earned"

And to suggest there isn't much cooperation between management and unions on the railway is, quite frankly, ridiculous.

In one.

 

[Agent_c]

Well what other sort of "progress" could be meant. Because if it was "progress" that was of benefit to the workforce then there would be no dispute.

You've never been in a workplace where at least one employee resent any change, any new tool, any new process because "its not how we do things here" or "it wasn't invented here"?

If you haven't experienced that, I'd suggest you're either very fortunate, or very inexperienced in the working world.

 

[HLE]

You've never been in a workplace where at least one employee resent any change, any new tool, any new process because "its not how we do things here" or "it wasn't invented here"?

If you haven't experienced that, I'd suggest you're either very fortunate, or very inexperienced in the working world.

But it isn't one employee or indeed them all resenting the change because it's not how things are currently done. It is because management are trying to push through the change without agreeing it with the union first, which also breaks the original agreement.

 

[Minilad]

You've never been in a workplace where at least one employee resent any change, any new tool, any new process because "its not how we do things here" or "it wasn't invented here"?

If you haven't experienced that, I'd suggest you're either very fortunate, or very inexperienced in the working world.

Neither. And in the main that really isn't what happens on the railway. In my 19 years experience of the industry.

 

[D1009]

Does anyone know whether the 0530 Victoria to Gatwick is actually diagrammed for a 12 car on Saturdays, or was it some cockup over set allocations?

 

[BestWestern]

I am not anti-guard, and I get mightily ****ed off having to repeat that for the hard of thinking.

I am anti dinosaur rail unions. And anti those union members who go through their railway working life constantly antagonistic toward management. I know of no other industry where there is so little collaboration and consent between staff, management and unions. I'm also no fan of entrenched positions. They rarely succeed.

So you are against the unions, not the Guards... But you prefer to vent your spleen at the job grades of the union members rather than the organisation itself? That is the impression, I'm afraid.

You are a big supporter of DOO and frequently make that known, as well as giving us your thoughts on those Guards who have had to take industrial action to protect their jobs. I think most of us can draw our own conclusions from that.

However, the excuse that "we've being doing the job for years" doesn't wash with me either. No progress can ever be made with that attitude.

You have a far better grasp of the issues at hand than that. Would it be Aslef or the RMT who have made that comment?!

 

[Agent_c]

But it isn't one employee or indeed them all resenting the change because it's not how things are currently done. It is because management are trying to push through the change without agreeing it with the union first, which also breaks the original agreement.

Whilst that is true in this specific instance, that isn't the more general situation I was replying to.

Not all positive workflow changes are universally welcomed. Recognising that doesn't mean that someone is in favour of every paycut, retrenchment, or downgrading of T&Cs, and its dishonest to suggest such a thing

 

[philthetube]

I understand these trains have train mounted cctv. Two issues with this, one camera failing will result in the whole train being removed from service as no guard on board will mean no safe dispatch. also how many cameras can a driver safely view, there must be a minimum of 12, and maybe 24. If someone is kissing goodbye to their partner and not standing clear the drivers eyes are going to be focused on that event and not on what is going on further down the train.

 

[BestWestern]

I understand these trains have train mounted cctv. Two issues with this, one camera failing will result in the whole train being removed from service as no guard on board will mean no safe dispatch. also how many cameras can a driver safely view, there must be a minimum of 12, and maybe 24. If someone is kissing goodbye to their partner and not standing clear the drivers eyes are going to be focused on that event and not on what is going on further down the train.

Indeed. There is also the issue that a Driver cannot observe a vast bank of CCTV pictures at the same time as fully paying attention to the track ahead. In many cases the screens deactivate at a low speed as they have been identified as a concentration issue for the Driver. So this method of operation gives and inferior view from the very start, offers minimal observation of the Platform Train Interface once the train is moving, and is acknowledged to be a source of distraction for the Driver. Hardly a glittering sales pitch, is it.

 

[313103]

Post Deleted
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Yes but you got a £50,000 pay off from Silverlink too & a new job. The forum will only work well if we try to tell it like it is,not use it to bang a drum.

You know me then, you was once a friend. Care to admit you once knew me?

 

[carriageline]

I love the arguement that railway workers are overpaid. I would love to watch someone on minimum wage learn the high intensity of stuff we have to learn, retain, and be able to call upon with a seconds notice, works the god awful shifts we have to work, have the responsibility of people's lives, millions of pounds of equipment all in our hands. Even having the responsibility that the slightest error can cost the company hundreds of thousands in delay minutes.

I wouldn't do it for half what I earn, never mind any less. That's not me being snobby, it just isn't worth the risk.

And after all, pay peanuts get monkeys.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sarahj]

Does anyone know whether the 0530 Victoria to Gatwick is actually diagrammed for a 12 car on Saturdays, or was it some cockup over set allocations?

No cockup

 

[cjmillsnun]

it might be worth noting that, until the pigs arrived the max was 9 coaches for doo

Was it not 9 coaches + loco? ie 10 vehicles?

 

[SpacePhoenix]

On Electrostar variants where there are guards do they operate the doors from panels at the passenger doors or from a panel in a cab?

 

[Carlisle]

I love the arguement that railway workers are overpaid. I would love to watch someone on minimum wage learn the high intensity of stuff we have to learn, retain, and be able to call upon with a seconds notice, works the god awful shifts we have to work, have the responsibility of people's lives, millions of pounds of equipment all in our hands. Even having the responsibility that the slightest error can cost the company hundreds of thousands in delay minutes.

I wouldn't do it for half what I earn, never mind any less. That's not me being snobby, it just isn't worth the risk.

And after all, pay peanuts get monkeys.
lk

whilst there were always a few bad apples, I know from personal experience that the overwhelming majority of BR era employees undertook virtually identical railway work/responsible as you describe above in a safe and professional manner for many many years before salaries reached anything like their current levels

 

[tsr]

On Electrostar variants where there are guards do they operate the doors from panels at the passenger doors or from a panel in a cab?

Either! For 377s, the "ten bell" dispatch system applies in the cabs, where the conductor has to tell the driver to close the passenger doors by means of a bell code. The rest of the train has conductor panels (one per side, in one vestibule per coach) with signal bells, handsets and door close buttons. For 387s, the train can be dispatched by a conductor from any location (intermediate/rear cabs as well as panels in each coach) using the standard Electrostar door procedure, with passenger door close buttons & the signal bell.

Due to the driver having to do a little bit more work and the fact that unexpected bell codes can cause a small amount of confusion, conductors generally work 377s from the conductor panels within the saloon as a matter of courtesy. The cabs should only be used in situations such as the following: where it is overcrowded onboard, where it is more dangerous not to have a droplight (eg. dispatching from busy platforms on match days or suchlike) or there is a problem with onboard equipment (eg. a green light/flag has to be used instead of the bell). There are obviously other scenarios but I could be here all day listing them! Or indeed all night.

As Electrostars generally work in very long formations on many routes, there are also stations when conductor panels have to be used in specific coaches due to visibility on dispatch - so the cabs can't be used in many formations. For example, with a train 7 or more coaches in length at Dormans, you have to dispatch from coach 5 on the Up platform whether you like it or not! So if you had a train of 9 coaches formed of 3x377/3s, with intermediate/rear cabs in coaches 3/4/6/7/9, dispatch from the cab isn't going to work.

 

[mark-h]

Are there any platform staff for the Gatwick services with dispatch duties?

 

[HLE]

Whilst that is true in this specific instance, that isn't the more general situation I was replying to.

Not all positive workflow changes are universally welcomed. Recognising that doesn't mean that someone is in favour of every paycut, retrenchment, or downgrading of T&Cs, and its dishonest to suggest such a thing

So DOO is a positive workflow change?

How?