Northern pay negotiations - deal agreed

[superkev]

As a sideline I wonder how much drivers are paid in say Germany or France.
Previous benchmarking of UK railway costs with other countries (quickly forgotton Mcnulty report) I seem to remember was not good.
K

 

[northwichcat]

As a sideline I wonder how much drivers are paid in say Germany or France.
Previous benchmarking of UK railway costs with other countries (quickly forgotton Mcnulty report) I seem to remember was not good.
K

I think care needs to be taken when comparing with other countries. I imagine Switzerland would have some of the best paid train crews in Europe but then the cost of living in Switzerland is much higher than that in the UK.

It seems there are no driver vacancies currently being advertised by DB in Germany but plenty of engineering, logistics and technical trainee roles. Maybe you need to work your way up to being a driver opposed to being able to join as a trainee driver?

 

[Scott M]

Used to be a union supporter but railway unions have put me right off. Now I hope the government clamps down on these chancers and can see exactly why they have done what they have with GTR/Southern. I hope that the zero tolerance approach of drivers and their unions is being met by an equally zero tolerance response from TOCs if a driver makes even a slight error or causes a delay.

I cannot be the only person who has a very low opinion of drivers and their unions now.

 

[WCMLaddict]

I was only able to find exact details of the 3 most recent pay offers and one of those is the current one they are voting on so may not be the final amount.

Anyway you were originally saying about the offer for the Northern staff being 0.3% below the average for this year, so getting 1.8% above the average in one previous year is really sufficient to back up my claim of 'other industries are playing catch up with the rail staff who sprinted off in to the distance.'

Looks like as many industries are sprinting off in the distance away from railway.
What's even more relevant is that the gap within this one industry is widening.

 

[Lemmy99uk]

I think care needs to be taken when comparing with other countries. I imagine Switzerland would have some of the best paid train crews in Europe but then the cost of living in Switzerland is much higher than that in the UK.

It seems there are no driver vacancies currently being advertised by DB in Germany but plenty of engineering, logistics and technical trainee roles. Maybe you need to work your way up to being a driver opposed to being able to join as a trainee driver?

This makes for interesting reading. I can't vouch for its accuracy but I reckon it puts puts .U.K. drivers near the top of the European tree

http://www.dw.com/en/german-train-drivers-earn-less-than-youd-think/a-18467783

 

[northwichcat]

Looks like as many industries are sprinting off in the distance away from the railway.

Evidence? One TOC's disputed current offer is not sufficient evidence to back up that claim, especially when they disappeared in to the distance on a TGV in 2014 and the other industries were left with coaching stock and no loco.

 

[WCMLaddict]

Evidence? One TOC's disputed current offer is not sufficient evidence to back up that claim, especially when they disappeared in to the distance on a TGV in 2014 and the other industries were left with coaching stock and no loco.

If rail (Northern) pay increase is below the average doesn't that mean that there are more people that have higher increases? Wouldn't a proportion of these be people that always had above average increases? Same as a proportion would have always lower than average increase?

My point about the offer not being particularly attractive or even near the average across the country and all industries still stands.

 

[FordFocus]

Agreed but the RMT wants to compare Northern with other TOCs where roles are not identical. For instance, Virgin ticket office/travel centre staff at Manchester Piccadilly or Stockport do not do the same role as Northern ticket office staff at Hale or East Didsbury.

Can you explain the difference between the roles please?

 

[NorthernSpirit]

That statement does not sit well with recent utterances from RMT and its officers concerning the death of Fidel Castro and a desire to overthrow the democratically elected government of the UK.

I'm just waiting until the Labour party collapses and then the RMT might, just might calm themselves down a bit even if their posterboy Castro has recently pegged it.

Should Northern go on strike then I'm expecting to see the "emergency timetable" being wheeled out from the ATN days but with a few revisions. Needless to say, that the rate things are looking the entire rail network will end up juddering to a halt.

 

[Carlisle]

Comparisons are odious; no two jobs are identical. One of the downsides of collective bargaining is simply that those with more power have a better chance of getting more pay. If you have a weak bargaining position then it doesn't do much for you. .

In which case an occasional backlash against excessive union power is merely part of a naturally occurring cycle of workforces equalling themselves out

 

[coxxy]

Used to be a union supporter but railway unions have put me right off. Now I hope the government clamps down on these chancers and can see exactly why they have done what they have with GTR/Southern. I hope that the zero tolerance approach of drivers and their unions is being met by an equally zero tolerance response from TOCs if a driver makes even a slight error or causes a delay.

I cannot be the only person who has a very low opinion of drivers and their unions now.

This to me is the unfortunate thing that is happening with the railway industry at present, although whilst dealing with it on a day to day basis I still find it extremely disturbing.

I shall not bother going in to the argument of what has happened with the southern rail franchise and where its failures lie but remember these guys are fighting to keep the trains safe and in the guards cases, to save their jobs as well. So I for one completely support that.

In terms of the Northern ballot they are fighting for a fair pay rise. Whether you or I think they are entitled to that doesn't come in to it anywhere. That is between the TOC and its employees.

but 1 last thing to remember Scott i that the TOC's do have a zero tolerance on drivers, guards and most other safety critical staff within the industry already. Reason being that they have too, you may like to have a read through the RAIB and the RSSB to see the work they do to try and prevent the slightest of errors.

In terms of causing a delay as well, unfortunately for yourself and everyone that may be affected its up to him how he drives his train. If there is a delay, then trust me there is a reason for it. Drivers aren't out there thinking about intentionally making a train late. They are out there driving from point A to point B to point C etc etc.

I really do wish people would remember that drivers aren't just out to bring the country to a standstill whenever they please. They have worked damn hard to get to where they are and they work damn hard daily to ensure that they stay there.

 

[bb21]

No pay rise? Name me any such group.

At my TOC, many office-based roles have had no increase for a number of years. For my grade, no increase in at least the last four, not even a penny.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I really do wish people would remember that drivers aren't just out to bring the country to a standstill whenever they please. They have worked damn hard to get to where they are and they work damn hard daily to ensure that they stay there.

At the cost to the countless numbers of "collateral damage" who use rail travel to commute to and from their places of work.

 

[HH]

At my TOC, many office-based roles have had no increase for a number of years. For my grade, no increase in at least the last four, not even a penny.

Ah, office-based roles. We weren't really discussing office-based roles, especially as they must be outside collective bargaining if you've had no rise.

I'd like to know which particular bunch of meanies run your TOC though, so that we can all avoid working for them.

And I have a question; after 4 years of no rises how many staff have resigned?

 

[AlterEgo]

Ah, office-based roles. We weren't really discussing office-based roles, especially as they must be outside collective bargaining if you've had no rise.

I'd like to know which particular bunch of meanies run your TOC though, so that we can all avoid working for them.

And I have a question; after 4 years of no rises how many staff have resigned?

No, office roles aren't outside of collective bargaining. The TSSA represent most office grades.

I don't believe I worked for the same TOC as bb21 does, but a contributing factor to why I left the industry was money.

I think the unions have taken a fair and deserved bashing on this forum, but collective bargaining (done tactfully!) is certainly a good thing.

If you were selling anything else you'd be able to set your own price and even negotiate. Why not your labour?

 

[northwichcat]

Can you explain the difference between the roles please?

Between gaps in services Northern ticket office staff can be seen doing things such as collecting up rubbish, sweeping up leaves, putting grit salt on the platforms etc. Virgin managed stations don't tend to have large gaps in services and being larger stations they have other support staff who do other duties.
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If rail (Northern) pay increase is below the average doesn't that mean that there are more people that have higher increases? Wouldn't a proportion of these be people that always had above average increases?

If they are you haven't provided any evidence of that. All you've provided is a link showing the average pay increases for all sectors and overall Northern staff have done a lot better than the average for the past three years if we presume the pay award for the current financial year remains the same.

Someone on £30,000 in March 2014, who got the average pay rise of 0.9% would go up to £30,270 while a Northern employee on £30,000 would have gone up to £30,810. If the person getting the average pay rise then gets 2.3% increase and the Northern employee gets 2% then the Northern employee goes up to £31,426 while the person getting the average pay rise every year goes up to £30,966.

You also need to treat those kind of statistics with caution. Many companies have been very cautious about recruiting additional people and have increased hours for some existing employees rather than recruiting additional employees. One company not too far from me increased hours from 40 per week to 42.5 per week for a number of employees - that's a 6.25% increase in their annual pay before any pay rises are taken in to consideration but a 0% increase in their hourly pay.

Also how do the statistics take the following scenario in to consideration - a senior team member resigns, the company decides to promote another member of the team to senior member and gives them a big pay rise but decides the team would work with one less member so doesn't recruit a new mid-level team member so the average pay of the team goes up simply by one person being promoted.

 

[HH]

No, office roles aren't outside of collective bargaining. The TSSA represent most office grades.

While that was true at one time, today most office-based staff are not in a Union and they are deemed "management".

If there are union member "staff" at bb21's TOC I'd be very surprised if they didn't get the same increase as other clerical grades, e.g. ticket office staff.

 

[AlterEgo]

While that was true at one time, today most office-based staff are not in a Union and they are deemed "management".

If there are union member "staff" at bb21's TOC I'd be very surprised if they didn't get the same increase as other clerical grades, e.g. ticket office staff.

Management can be in the TSSA. I was on a management contract and was also a TSSA member. TSSA membership was roughly 50% in my workplace.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

Between gaps in services Northern ticket office staff can be seen doing things such as collecting up rubbish, sweeping up leaves, putting grit salt on the platforms etc. Virgin managed stations don't tend to have large gaps in services and being larger stations they have other support staff who do other duties....

"Outstations", such as Hale, will have some platform based duties (they don't have to "put grit salt on the platforms" as there is a contracted company to do that). However, some other ticket office staff are of a different grade and do not have these duties to perform, offices at stations such as Bolton, Manchester Oxford Road, Manchester Victoria and Leeds for example.

 

[FordFocus]

Between gaps in services Northern ticket office staff can be seen doing things such as collecting up rubbish, sweeping up leaves, putting grit salt on the platforms etc. Virgin managed stations don't tend to have large gaps in services and being larger stations they have other support staff who do other duties.

So who in your opinion should get paid more then? The multi skilled Northern outstation staff or Virgin ticket office staff?

 

[northwichcat]

So who in your opinion should get paid more then? The multi skilled Northern outstation staff or Virgin ticket office staff?

I was making the point the roles can be different when comparing between TOCs as some people like comparing between TOCs (to make out Northern staff are poorly paid) but don't like comparing rail professions to equivalents in other sectors (which suggests Northern staff are very well paid.) The Virgin ticket office staff will have earlier starts and later finishes and I imagine they are paid more than the staff who do some of the other support roles at larger stations.

If I was interested in a station staff role I'd probably prefer the more varied role as I'd find having just one duty too boring and repetitive. If a lot of other people share that opinion then it may be more difficult to recruit for the ticket selling only roles which could then mean they have to pay more to attract people to do the role.

 

[FordFocus]

I was making the point the roles can be different when comparing between TOCs as some people like comparing between TOCs (to make out Northern staff are poorly paid) but don't like comparing rail professions to equivalents in other sectors (which suggests Northern staff are very well paid.) The Virgin ticket office staff will have earlier starts and later finishes and I imagine they are paid more than the staff who do some of the other support roles at larger stations.

Compare between TOCs for now, let's stick with the one thing at a time. Railway term and conditions can get quite complex in particular if they've been restructured on occasions e.g. sell your Saturday overtime payment for additional 1% on your basic salary. If it's within the same industry it should be easier to benchmark what your pay award.

I've not been a RMT member for years now so I have lost access to the pay and condition database they have but I strongly suspect that Ticket Office staff on Virgin are on a higher wage than Northern. It gets a lot more complicated though as the Northern outstation staff do more of variety of a role than someone sat in the Travel Centre at Stockport. Northern staff will have to assist people with disabilities, attend to posters, cleaning the station, gritting and virtually managing the station. The odd Northern stations have dispatchers like at your nearby Wilmslow. Some Virgin staff can do both ticket office and safety critical dispatch work depending on the station they are based at.

I'll dismiss your bit about Virgin been paid more because they book on earlier, it's not quite true. Some Northern staff will book on early because of requires of opening the station or been an STAR/AVANTIX/DORIS/TICKETTHING point to hand out ticket machines. That's not strictly restricted to Northern either, I bet it happens all over the country.

So ultimately it depends on which station your stationed at and your range of duties that will affect your pay grade. I won't go into relief staff that cover various ticket offices and their flexible contracts.

The key factor here is what did the likes of Virgin, TPE and ATW agree for their basic pay award?

If I was interested in a station staff role I'd probably prefer the more varied role as I'd find having just one duty too boring and repetitive.

I'm sure Knutsford will come up one day provided they don't close it.

 

[northwichcat]

^ New station staff have been employed at Knutsford in recent years to cover one person who retired and one who left. I said IF I wanted such a role not that I wanted one. The ticket office staff on the Mid-Cheshire generally work something like 06:15-13:45 or 13:15-20:45 with Hale only being the morning shift and only Mon to Fri. So the person who is the usual person at Hale is lucky as they get a full time job which doesn't involve any late or weekend work. Manchester Piccadilly travel centre is open 04:30-22:30 Mon-Sat with shorter Sunday hours.

 

[wingsoveryorks]

Get the ballot papers delivered quick.

Hard to say how it will go. ASLEF are balloting also and I suspect both unions will possibly go for 'action short of a strike' But it is difficult to predict because there's such a wide area of depots with differing opinions.

That said. 'Action short of a strike' could be very disruptive indeed, especially with Sunday services on Northern.
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All I can say is this. The 'Numpty Bollox' CEO, who sent his staff that patronising message in the Christmas card might live to regret it. Mwah.

 

[TUC]

It's OK rail unions. Unlike parts of the south east, in Northern Rail territory most of us can get to work without you. Go on strike if you want. We'll just get to work other ways and have a think about whether or not to return to rail if/when you come back to work.


You're not essential to our lives.

 

[tbtc]

And, despite me asking yesterday, still nobody appears to be able to explain what this 'benchmark' the union spoke of actually is...

It's a shame that nobody seems to want to give you an answer - if a real terms pay increase (RPI + 0.1%) isn't enough then I'd be interested to know what would be reasonable.

Easy to call an offer a "disgrace" and ball for industrial action but apparently harder to let people know the kind of increase that you are looking for. Surely they aren't demanding parity with InterCity operations?

The bottom line is companies do not take on contracts that will generate them a loss. Whether a profit is derived from creative accounting, which is a very common occurrence especially in public tenders, through subsidies or just actually doing well they, as we are often reminded on here, do not do it for the betterment of humanity. So if companies, even if there were only 3, lined up to bid for the Northern franchise then there is clearly a profit to be made, otherwise none would have bothered. Arriva, as has been pointed out, isn't doing too badly, and since the referendum vote DB have backed away from partially floating it so they must be sure that it isn't going to be a loss to their group, and are able to keep it on rather than take a possible lower floatation price for it.

I never understand why some people feel the need to back big business over the people actually delivering the service and helping generate the profits. Northern staff may not yet have contributed much to those profits, but many of them helped the previous franchise shoehorn in up to 25% more punters onto their ever-aging trains, whilst actually managing to improve the service from the previous owners (ironically Arriva). They have managed despite lots of bad publicity over trains, capacity etc to deliver more than might have been otherwise expected.

On face value, the offer may look reasonable, being a fraction above inflation. But I don't know what they are actually on, the full nature of the offer, or the nature of previous deals. But even if it was a reasonable one, simply testing the waters with a ballot isn't some despicable act of greed. Unions use this all the time to see if there is any flexibility in the employers. They must at least get a sense, as will Arriva if the staff are unhappy with the current deal they have and if the offer will make up anything lost previously. Perhaps those staff actually working for Northern might offer some insight as to how they are feeling about their pay and T&Cs, rather than some board members simply huffing and puffing about how terrible it is that some people want better?

You appear to be (deliberately?) confusing two different things.

• Whether a franchise is profitable (does ticket revenue etc exceed operating costs?)
• Whether it is profitable for a TOC to operate that franchise (can they bid to operate the franchise so that the TOC gets more in subsidy or pays less in premium than break even)

In the case of Northern, they required something like forty pence per passenger mile in subsidy under the previous franchise. According to 2015 figures, it required over one hundred million pounds in subsidy (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...n-rail-services-cost-commuters-1-billion.html). Good luck explaining that away as "creative accounting".

Revenues will have improved since then but I don't think anyone would believe it realistic to operate the franchise whilst paying a premium to the Government - it's a fundamentally unprofitable set of services (linking a number of rural towns/ villages, restricted to PTE-levels of ticket prices but without the meaty InterCity services where you can make the big money).

But, as I've said before on this thread, should company profits determine staff pay? That would presumably mean that VTEC employees would see their wages stagnate as the passenger numbers aren't increasing as highly as Stagecoach/Virgin banked that they would. Seems unfair to me. Or is it just that complaining about TOC profits is a convenient scapegoat often rolled out to distract from wage disputes?

Ticket prices are going up currently in line with RPI (albeit with the previous July's RPI), so it's better than current ticket price increases. Possibly the RPI they want to base the wage increase on?

But plans are to increase that back to RPI+1% in 2021. Let me see, how many years time is that?

I don't mind which month you use for RPI (it'll even out one way or the other - IIRC lots of Government benefits are based on the September figures?) - I just thought that linking staff wage rises to ticket prices would be a politically smart/ neat move.

(obviously lots of other factors aren't linked to RPI - fuel/ leasing etc - but we'd save a lot of arguments if staff wages and ticket prices were broadly the same each year)

When Arriva took over, part of me thought they would offer a basic year or two year deal then get themselves settled ready to sort out the harmonisation and possible Sunday working in 2018.

Instead they've kept the Abellio deadwood and continued business as normal when it comes to industrial relations.

I'm not sure how Arriva come out of this as the bad guys - they are offering an above inflation increase and the Union are going straight to balloting over pay. It's "a pay offer that does not meet the benchmark that the union has set elsewhere in the rail industry" (rather than balloting members because they are unhappy with the length of the deal).

I'd have thought that offering your employees guaranteed pay rises above the Retail Prices Index was reasonably good "industrial relations"?

I appreciate a strike may not go down well with people but what else are The Northern staff to do? They want a pay rise like everyone else within the railway industry but quite rightly will not accept what is being put on the table.

What level of pay rise are Northern staff demanding though?

People on here seem very reluctant to explain why RPI + 0.1% isn't acceptable so we are no closer to finding out what would be acceptable.

 

[Class 170101]

Revenues will have improved since then but I don't think anyone would believe it realistic to operate the franchise whilst paying a premium to the Government - it's a fundamentally unprofitable set of services (linking a number of rural towns/ villages, restricted to PTE-levels of ticket prices but without the meaty InterCity services where you can make the big money).

Would Manchester to Barrow / Windermere / Blackpool not count as Intercity?

 

[74A]

Would Manchester to Barrow / Windermere / Blackpool not count as Intercity?

err no

 

[takno]

People on here seem very reluctant to explain why RPI + 0.1% isn't acceptable so we are no closer to finding out what would be acceptable.

In short, in this year it's acceptable but not good, but it's a four year deal.

In most years average wages across the whole economy rise by significantly more than inflation. There are obviously troughs, and we have been in one for a few years, but in pretty much any 20 year period in the last several hundred years real-terms wages have gone up. You would expect this because the economy tends to grow and productivity rises, and if wages didn't go up in real terms all the extra productivity would end up as profit for owners of capital.

Right now average wages are not rising by a lot more than inflation (although I think it's more than 0.1%), but in four years time there's a fairly good chance they could be rising by as much as 2-3% above inflation, with the Northern staff tied into what will then look like an appalling deal.

 

[highdyke]

In short, in this year it's acceptable but not good, but it's a four year deal.

In most years average wages across the whole economy rise by significantly more than inflation. There are obviously troughs, and we have been in one for a few years, but in pretty much any 20 year period in the last several hundred years real-terms wages have gone up. You would expect this because the economy tends to grow and productivity rises, and if wages didn't go up in real terms all the extra productivity would end up as profit for owners of capital.

Right now average wages are not rising by a lot more than inflation (although I think it's more than 0.1%), but in four years time there's a fairly good chance they could be rising by as much as 2-3% above inflation, with the Northern staff tied into what will then look like an appalling deal.

Productivity in the UK economy as a whole is appalling, the worst since records began.

As for the railways to quote

Overall productivity growth (measured by train km per employee) has seen minimal growth since privatisation (10% over 12 years) (Table 25). This is low compared to the economy as a whole and certainly compared to what might have been expected following privatisation and competitive franchising.

What productivity growth that there is has been driven by the Intercity TOCs, who have seen the highest growth in train-km.

Comparisons with TOC productivity in other European countries show that overall train kms per full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) are about 50% lower in Britain than in Germany, Sweden or the Netherlands (Table 27).

The increase in staff costs since privatisation has been caused by both an increase in headcount, and an increase in average staff costs per headcount. Average staff costs have increased by 31% as compared to 15% growth in real average earnings for the economy as a whole (Figure 7). This increase has levelled off in recent years, but most of this period saw a strong economy which caused vacancy gaps to become harder to fill. Most TOCs serve London and employ significant numbers of staff there. This will
have had an impact on the average salaries.

http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/2709/rvfm-aecom-people-march2011.pdf

This is against a backdrop that Northern (282 million total subsidy), Merseyrail (75 million total subsidy) receive the most subsidy per passenger KM.

http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/18842/rail-finance-statistical-release-2014-15.pdf

http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/displayreport/report/html/95218cca-408d-4047-83ce-a542c53b59e6

It seems like a case for inflation only pay rises until productivity improves (better loading, longer trains, more efficient ways of working).

The idea that wages should be the same as LSE TOCs where cost of living is higher, or there should be large pay rises without increases in productivity is somewhat fanciful.