Arriva Rail North DOO

[Robertj21a]

Not yet, but give it until Thursday. Fairly sure the Saturday theme will continue, just a question of how many will be called.

Not sure that anyone is going to be surprised at whatever number the RMT dream up !

Perhaps Arriva should just get the DfT to agree to no trains on strike days.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Vivid imagination. Interesting that the only time in months Northern held a 'Meet the manager' session it had to be in leafy Congleton with the resident Tory MP coming along to say her piece.
Now why don't they hold one in Wigan, Manchester, or Ormskirk?

I have emboldened the word "leafy" in your quote above and after what you say in your final sentence, I can assure you that Wigan, Manchester and Ormskirk are most certainly not arborially challenged in any way.

 

[yorksrob]

Not sure that anyone is going to be surprised at whatever number the RMT dream up !

Perhaps Arriva should just get the DfT to agree to no trains on strike days.

That would be no help to passengers though.

(Apologies to @CN75 and @coppercapped, I'm out and about today and will respond to your posts when I have time to digest them).

 

[Robertj21a]

That would be no help to passengers though.

(Apologies to @CN75 and @coppercapped, I'm out and about today and will respond to your posts when I have time to digest them).

No, quite - but at least everyone would know what was/not running.

 

[Carlisle]

Network SouthEast and various early TOCs brought in driver opening at various times without much in the way of resistance

I remember unions were unhappy when the first networker turbo worked north of Banbury into Birmingham, however it was reported as just a misunderstanding between national and local agreements and never lead to industrisl action of any sort that I can recall

 

[Bevan Price]

CaptainHaddock said: ↑
Indeed. The current strikes are a glimpse of what life would be like under a Corbyn government all the time, never mind just Saturdays. I wonder why he hasn't come out and condemned the RMT for preventing ordinary working class people getting to work? Anybody would think the trade union movement are his paymasters.....

Well, the RMT isn't. Corbyn owes them nothing.

Even if RMT gives nothing to Labour, the tory media will probably still use the RMT as an example of "life under a Corbyn government" at the next election, and enough people could believe them to ensure that Labour does not win that election.

Moreover, if the strikes continue for month after month, that media might start suggesting that guards are overpaid if they can afford to lose so much pay - and suggest to DfT /TOCs that they ought to cancel future pay increases - and starve them into submission after the all-out strikes that might then occur......
(Only a thought - it probably won't happen - but neither can it be ruled out completely. Some on "the right" hate TUs and don't much care if the public are inconvenienced, especially if they are remote from London .)

 

[6Gman]

Vivid imagination. Interesting that the only time in months Northern held a 'Meet the manager' session it had to be in leafy Congleton with the resident Tory MP coming along to say her piece.
Now why don't they hold one in Wigan, Manchester, or Ormskirk?

You've clearly never toured Congleton's extensive council estate!

 

[Carlisle]

I can assure you that Wigan, Manchester and Ormskirk are most certainly not arborially challenged in any way.

On the above criteria would Sheffield be a front runner for virtually zero possibility of any liaison with northern management?

 

[6Gman]

Well, the RMT isn't [a paymaster to the Labour Party]. Corbyn owes them nothing.

The most recent Register of MP's Interests I can trace shows Corbyn, J receiving £5,000 from the RMT. One of 14 MPs (including the Shadow Chancellor and Shadow Home Secretary) who received at least £55,000 from the Union.

It is true that the RMT is not formally affiliated to the Labour Party, but it is committed to supporting the party including by funding.

 

[yorksrob]

No, quite - but at least everyone would know what was/not running.

Yes. Why not close down the whole network, then at least we would know what was not running !

 

[Gems]

The most recent Register of MP's Interests I can trace shows Corbyn, J receiving £5,000 from the RMT. One of 14 MPs (including the Shadow Chancellor and Shadow Home Secretary) who received at least £55,000 from the Union.

It is true that the RMT is not formally affiliated to the Labour Party, but it is committed to supporting the party including by funding.

Would you like me to trawl up the register of Tory donors. Russian oligarchs and tax haven dodgers. Not a pretty list is it.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Would you like me to trawl up the register of Tory donors. Russian oligarchs and tax haven dodgers. Not a pretty list is it.

Yes the Tories have not the best bunch of donors but it's morally wrong for a union to associate with a political party-wait a second...

 

[coppercapped]

Ah, but if we really were troubled by losing money, we would go into work. But nobody does.
Yes it is bad for the passengers I agree, but I think that by looking at the rather pathetic service Northern can muster, it is obvious it is achieving something. There are many, many strikes in all industries that don't achieve their aim, doesn't mean everyone has to roll over.

There are in fact very few strikes in other industries - unsuccessful or not.

The Office of National Statistics data for 2017, to be found here, shows that:

• There were 276,000 working days lost due to labour disputes, the sixth lowest annual total since records began in 1891.
• The transport and storage sector accounted for 68% of all working days lost due to labour disputes; the strikes within this sector occurred mainly within public transport.
• There were 79 stoppages, the lowest figure since records for stoppages began in 1891.
• There were 33,000 workers involved in labour disputes, the lowest figure since records for workers involved began in 1893.

This implies that about half the working days lost in 2017 in the whole country were due to actions by the RMT alone.

Do NOT try to pretend this is anything but malevolence by its leadership.

 

[Carlisle]

Would you like me to trawl up the register of Tory donors. Russian oligarchs and tax haven dodgers.

None of whom are intentionally preventing ordinary northerners going about their daily lives on a regular basis, as undesirable as they may be, and if it was ever revealed they were, im sure it wouldn’t take long before they’d be dropped like a lead balloon

 

[HowardGWR]

The most recent Register of MP's Interests I can trace shows Corbyn, J receiving £5,000 from the RMT. One of 14 MPs (including the Shadow Chancellor and Shadow Home Secretary) who received at least £55,000 from the Union.

It is true that the RMT is not formally affiliated to the Labour Party, but it is committed to supporting the party including by funding.

Thanks. I suspect the three you mentioned are not regarded as Labour but 'real Labour' or whatever the nomenclature for the latest variant is.
On the subject, I doubt the Northern RMT strikes have any effect on people's voting intention whatsoever. Not in significant quantities, anyway.

 

[LowLevel]

There are in fact very few strikes in other industries - unsuccessful or not.

The Office of National Statistics data for 2017, to be found here, shows that:

• There were 276,000 working days lost due to labour disputes, the sixth lowest annual total since records began in 1891.
• The transport and storage sector accounted for 68% of all working days lost due to labour disputes; the strikes within this sector occurred mainly within public transport.
• There were 79 stoppages, the lowest figure since records for stoppages began in 1891.
• There were 33,000 workers involved in labour disputes, the lowest figure since records for workers involved began in 1893.

This implies that about half the working days lost in 2017 in the whole country were due to actions by the RMT alone.

Do NOT try to pretend this is anything but malevolence by its leadership.

Why don't you have a look at comparable figures for 2015 and back, IE before the Government started getting involved in specifying traincrewing.

I for one have never been on strike while working for a TOC. We also don't have any DOO trains.

 

[Starmill]

Doubtless a strike will be announced shortly for 5 January then. That will crush my travel plans at a snap of the fingers.

Still, Northern will be on the hook to pay my bills for alternative transport - and then to compensate me for the value of my fare back. Must be getting expensive now, me having all these free journeys.

 

[Matt_pool]

Doubtless a strike will be announced shortly for 5 January then. That will crush my travel plans at a snap of the fingers.

Still, Northern will be on the hook to pay my bills for alternative transport - and then to compensate me for the value of my fare back. Must be getting expensive now, me having all these free journeys.

Not just strike days but all the other days they cancel trains, like last Sunday, the 20.25 and 21.25 Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester were both cancelled at short notice. And trying to get into Liverpool earlier in the day my train was cancelled.

Then last Wednesday the 23.38 from Lime Street was cancelled. They somehow put on a rail replacement bus though, so I can't put in a claim for that because I was only going to Mossley Hill. In fact, the bus was probably quicker than the train had it been running, because the train would have been delayed!

 

[yorksrob]

I was on an evening train from Warrington to Sheffield last night, and it was noticeable how quiet it was (compared to previous weeks). No doubt some of this was due to the atrocious weather, however i wonder how many would be passengers have simply given up on the train altogether.

Guards originally had nothing to do with closing doors, but power door stock arrived and for one reason or another the buttons on the driver’s desk were not used in much of the country. Network SouthEast and various early TOCs brought in driver opening at various times without much in the way of resistance from any party. It is not a major compromise from Arriva, no major benefit and achieves next to none of the customer service, punctuality or reliability objectives that Arriva and the DfT are seeking.

This dispute was over the RMT seeking an agreement from Arriva that they would not introduce DOO-P. The RMT knew from the franchise agreement that Arriva could not give that guarantee. Then the strikes started. The DfT did not wish to introduce DOO before the trains it could work with were introduced, and still does not.

The OBS system has led to Southern becoming strike-free with more staff on more money and when Southern have major delays, they can get the trains moving again quickly. Hardly meagre benefits, and something a significant population of the country had to put up with nearly two years of diabolical service caused by industrial action for.

Southern has used office staff as On Board Supervisors during strikes. Doubtless the training required is lighter but the trains can run and by all accounts Southern run a full timetable during their strikes now, even working with the ASLEF agreement. As the RMT does not recognise On Board Supervisors or represent them, it must be assumed the RMT is willingly participating in making itself irrelevant at that company.

Well with slam door trains the passengers operated the doors - a method of operation I am quite happy with as I have never gone along with the anti-slam door hysteria which has swept this country. However it was still the guards job to check that no one was still trying to get in, no doors were left open, no one was leaning on the train etc.

We all know who is Arriva's organ grinder, and it as far as i'm concerned, they should show some flexibility to get the trains moving.

Your argument is a circular one, because you are saying that Southern passengers had to put up with two years of diabolical action and this has been neutralised by the switch to DCO. Nevertheless, had there not been any intention to switch to DCO, there wouldn't have been that industrial action in the first place.

In the context of Northern, my view is that if the DfT were determined to have DCO on the network, they should have waited until they had a situation, like on Southern, where the vast majority of trains were capable of being operated on under DCO. That way any industrial action would have impacted on the companies revenue collection, but not the passenger, and the dispute would have truly been between the RMT and Northern, and not between all the protagonists, and the passengers, which is effectively the case now.

You misunderstand the source of most of the financial benefits to the TOC arising from the introduction of DOO or DCO. These come from the avoidance of the extra costs incurred as a result of perturbation in the service for whatever reason. These can be caused by engineering overruns, infrastructure failures, rolling stock failures, train delays putting staff out of place, unexpected illness, trespassers, level crossing incidents, suicides and so on and so forth.

The costs in terms of planning overheads, ecs running and cancelled passenger workings as a result of any or all of the above should not be underestimated. These costs stem from all sorts of scenarios such as having to get all the passengers to detrain after part of the journey, because the guard either did not appear or had to leave because another service would otherwise have to be cancelled, after which the train ran ecs to its intended terminus. The TOC was liable to pay compensation to the delayed passengers, some taxis and the overheads of having to manage all the knock-on effects. Each individual incident may not have broken the bank, but the sum total of many such incidents was considerable. Somewhere I remember reading an article or paper about the extra costs which a TOC had calculated it incurred in the course of a year as a result of disruption from any cause as being two or three per cent of its turnover - not much but the same order of magnitude as its expected profits. So quite noticeable. (I'm sorry, I can't recall where I read it - it may have been a newspaper article rather than being in one of the railway journals, it was three or four years ago and it was not written with specific reference to DOO or DCO).

The point is that the extra flexibility offered by DOO/DCO would help to reduce these costs which are bigger than trying to shave a few seconds off the dwell time at stations. The savings from this source, with some marginal extra income from reduced journey times, really only become significant if journey time can be sufficiently reduced that a service can be run with one or more fewer train sets. Not having to have a guard on a train under such circumstances reduces the number of constraints (is a guard available? does he/she have the correct route or traction knowledge? does he/she go 'out of hours' at the end of the journey? etc., etc.) that the control staff face when trying to recover the service.

This is not, repeat not, an argument for running trains generally with only one person on board. Passengers like seeing a member of staff on a train for a number of reasons and as far as I know there is no TOC, apart from one or two running very intense 'metro' style services where a second staff member can hardly move through the train, who have stated they want to introduce this method of train operation. Northern operates no services which are the equivalent to the Great Eastern suburban service out of Liverpool Street or the south-eastern services out of Cannon Street in terms of traffic density, train length or frequency.

I see what you're saying, but I would really need to see some statistics as to what proportion of peturbed services were affected in such a way as the driver was available but the guard wasn't (not counting the guard being unavailable due to the dispute itself), as opposed to situations where the guard was available, but the train would have been delayed anyway. Only then would I be able to judge whether the uplift in flexibility was worth the massive disruption that has been caused by this dispute.

My hunch is that the first circumstance is a comparatively small proportion of delays, and not worth either my disrupted time as a passenger, or the fall in revenue which I as a taxpayer will be ultimately paying for (given that the DfT has been generously subsidising Arriva to continue this dispute) as a result of the dispute. Nevertheless, I would be interested in seeing such statistics if they exist.

 

[scrapy]

CaptainHaddock said: ↑

Moreover, if the strikes continue for month after month, that media might start suggesting that guards are overpaid if they can afford to lose so much pay - and suggest to DfT /TOCs that they ought to cancel future pay increases - and starve them into submission after the all-out strikes that might then occur......

Or they could claim that the TOC is chronically understaffed in that staff can simply work overtime to make up for their losses.

 

[yorkie]

Or they could claim that the TOC is chronically understaffed in that staff can simply work overtime to make up for their losses.

That doesn't make sense, but I think @CaptainHaddock raises a good point; can you address that point?

 

[scrapy]

That doesn't make sense, but I think @CaptainHaddock raises a good point; can you address that point?

what I'm saying is that guards may not be overpaid, just able to recoup their losses by working overtime. If the TOC had sufficient staffing then this would not be possible and we'd be able to see for sure if guards could maintain this loss of income.

 

[HH]

what I'm saying is that guards may not be overpaid, just able to recoup their losses by working overtime. If the TOC had sufficient staffing then this would not be possible and we'd be able to see for sure if guards could maintain this loss of income.

You're saying it, but is it true?

 

[Mag_seven]

what I'm saying is that guards may not be overpaid, just able to recoup their losses by working overtime.

Is there not an overtime ban which normally accompanies strike action?

 

[scrapy]

Is there not an overtime ban which normally accompanies strike action?

No there is no overtime ban and a new ballot would need to take place for action short of a strike as no action was taken since the 1st ballot nearly 2 years ago.

 

[scrapy]

You're saying it, but is it true?

Certainly the case from guards I've spoken to. I've used the word 'may' as staffing levels will vary from depot to depot

 

[JamesT]

We all know who is Arriva's organ grinder, and it as far as i'm concerned, they should show some flexibility to get the trains moving.

Your argument is a circular one, because you are saying that Southern passengers had to put up with two years of diabolical action and this has been neutralised by the switch to DCO. Nevertheless, had there not been any intention to switch to DCO, there wouldn't have been that industrial action in the first place.

In the context of Northern, my view is that if the DfT were determined to have DCO on the network, they should have waited until they had a situation, like on Southern, where the vast majority of trains were capable of being operated on under DCO. That way any industrial action would have impacted on the companies revenue collection, but not the passenger, and the dispute would have truly been between the RMT and Northern, and not between all the protagonists, and the passengers, which is effectively the case now.

So punt this down the road to 2025 then? As the RMT’s stance is to strike unless there is a guarantee of no changes for the life of the franchise. Plus, although the newer trains could be run DCO (assuming ASLEF agree), you’ll still have a large proportion of the fleet that cannot and still be at risk of industrial action. And of course there will be a new government by then, making plans that assume the next government will continue your policies seems risky.

 

[yorksrob]

So punt this down the road to 2025 then? As the RMT’s stance is to strike unless there is a guarantee of no changes for the life of the franchise. Plus, although the newer trains could be run DCO (assuming ASLEF agree), you’ll still have a large proportion of the fleet that cannot and still be at risk of industrial action. And of course there will be a new government by then, making plans that assume the next government will continue your policies seems risky.

Yes, why not punt it down the road for another five years if it keeps the trains running.

The current situation of continuous industrial action clearly offers me no benefit, either as a passenger or a taxpayer.

 

[Killingworth]

There are in fact very few strikes in other industries - unsuccessful or not.

The Office of National Statistics data for 2017, to be found here, shows that:

• There were 276,000 working days lost due to labour disputes, the sixth lowest annual total since records began in 1891.
• The transport and storage sector accounted for 68% of all working days lost due to labour disputes; the strikes within this sector occurred mainly within public transport.
• There were 79 stoppages, the lowest figure since records for stoppages began in 1891.
• There were 33,000 workers involved in labour disputes, the lowest figure since records for workers involved began in 1893.

This implies that about half the working days lost in 2017 in the whole country were due to actions by the RMT alone.

Do NOT try to pretend this is anything but malevolence by its leadership.

Since starting to follow this thread I've noticed how readily the RMT uses the strike weapon, but these statistics really underline the problem.

The vast majority of union dealings with employers are being resolved without strikes. Many unions rarely get as far as threatening strikes.

As one who was actively involved with my union for 30 years, and seen many disagreements, I can't recall one time when we actually called a strike. Work to rule, ban on overtime and less drastic sanctions brought matters to a head. The threat of them was usually enough.

By resorting to strikes at the drop of a hat the RMT has reduced the value of it's ultimate weapon to achieve any settlement. It has also maximised the damage to the employer by the impact it's having on those using the service.

Such masochism may play well within some union quarters, but it certainly doesn't with travellers and is counterproductive.

None of which excuses the employers from playing their hand better either!

Glad I've got a car. Rail enthusiast I may be, but like very many I don't have to use a train. The services are bad enough without strikes.

 

[Gems]

Once again we go around and around. Let's lance a few misconceptions.

There is no overtime ban. How can you have a overtime ban when Sundays are outside of the working week. If Northern said no overtime working if you strike, you would kiss goodbye to every train on a Sunday also. But more than that, it would be incredibly difficult to predict what services would run during the week, you would certainly get random cancellations.
Thing is about posters here, you don't know the full picture. Northern send us emails on a daily basis begging us to work overtime and cover diagrams. Rather than seeing it like many of you do as a form of supporting the strike financially, perhaps you should see it as there still being a slither of goodwill left and something to build on.

Now we come to the old chestnut of 'safety critical' Being safety critical does not mean you need a guard to operate the doors on every service. It does however mean they have the competency to do so should they be needed. There are loads of possibilities here, and loads of scenarios where you may need to switch back even on a temporary basis. To me a blanket no is plain stupid on the part of Arriva. It smacks of not understanding the role which I honestly don't think many managers do.
There is only one reason to me why they would not consider this avenue, and that is because in their long term thinking they don't want any second person on the trains.