Unions promise to fight bid to make rail staff work weekends

[virgintrain1]

From today's Telegraph.

"Unions vow to fight measures aimed at making bailed-out industry more efficient"

Access Restricted

Have the RMT changed their mind in wanting Sundays part of the working week?

 

[Moonshot]

As so often pointed out on this forum, a reliable extended Sunday service cannot be provided in areas where Sundays are outside the working week for drivers and guards.

 

[LowLevel]

The best thing that can be done regarding this is to embrace it based on the personal preferences of the work force and come to an agreement - IE take it on for everyone, or have it for new starters. We've just agreed the latter as part of a wider ranging dispute resolution.

I agree wholeheartedly that the provision of a rail service shouldn't be based on whether people want to work or not.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The best thing that can be done regarding this is to embrace it based on the personal preferences of the work force and come to an agreement - IE take it on for everyone, or have it for new starters. We've just agreed the latter as part of a wider ranging dispute resolution.

Good to hear "just for new starters" is a thing somewhere. Like many suggestions I make here it was comprehensively rubbished and now it's happened (my best one so far was e-tickets, which are now ubiquitous).

Unions need to embrace that approach more widely. Yes, protect the position of established staff, but if you take a job then you take it based on the terms offered, and there's no reason those terms have to be the same as existing staff. If you don't like the terms offered when offered a job, you simply don't take it.

 

[O L Leigh]

At a time when the Treasury is trying to tighten the screws, this does seem like a strangely-timed proposal. Notwithstanding any disputes this might trigger, it’s going to be expensive to implement.

 

[Bletchleyite]

At a time when the Treasury is trying to tighten the screws, this does seem like a strangely-timed proposal. Notwithstanding any disputes this might trigger, it’s going to be expensive to implement.

It's becoming increasingly clear that the situation with fuel won't improve substantially, and so it's time to bite some bullets and make public transport more viable to use. Without universal Sunday service, the railway is not of use for a weekend away, for example. This has to be solved even if it costs money.

 

[O L Leigh]

It's becoming increasingly clear that the situation with fuel won't improve substantially, and so it's time to bite some bullets and make public transport more viable to use. Without universal Sunday service, the railway is not of use for a weekend away, for example. This has to be solved even if it costs money.

In a lot of cases, the Sunday service is delivered under current T&Cs. It’s only at a few TOCs where it’s not.

I’ve been unable to access the article on my phone, but I feel there’s been some deliberate use of emotive language by the headline writer. It’s not fighting proposals to make staff work at the weekend (ergo; making staff work when they don’t want to) but being consulted over and negotiating changes to those T&Cs, which is the proper process.

 

[Moonshot]

One of the ASLEF charter points is an " end to institutionalised overtime".

 

[LowLevel]

Good to hear "just for new starters" is a thing somewhere. Like many suggestions I make here it was comprehensively rubbished and now it's happened (my best one so far was e-tickets, which are now ubiquitous).

Unions need to embrace that approach more widely. Yes, protect the position of established staff, but if you take a job then you take it based on the terms offered, and there's no reason those terms have to be the same as existing staff. If you don't like the terms offered when offered a job, you simply don't take it.

It has been for years, the same happened with our drivers. Existing staff got the option to stick with their existing arrangements or move to the new contracts with a pay rise. Most changed over, some didn't. They have a rostering arrangement which means either can work.

For guards staff employed pre 2008 don't have to work Sundays but can choose to, 2008 to 2022 do but have the shifts paid as overtime with the rate enhanced as part of the deal and can request the shift to be covered by volunteers, and 2022 onwards will have the Sundays as part of their normal working pattern with no premium but another day off instead.

 

[Bletchleyite]

In a lot of cases, the Sunday service is delivered under current T&Cs. It’s only at a few TOCs where it’s not.

It's not reliable. It is unacceptable to be operating the base rail service on overtime. Overtime is for exceptions, and consistent RDW makes staff less safe as they will be more fatigued.

The correct number of staff need to be employed to operate the base service and the day to day accepted level of delays and sickness. Overtime kicks in if you have unexpectedly high sickness or severe disruption.

 

[Moonshot]

In a lot of cases, the Sunday service is delivered under current T&Cs. It’s only at a few TOCs where it’s not.

I’ve been unable to access the article on my phone, but I feel there’s been some deliberate use of emotive language by the headline writer. It’s not fighting proposals to make staff work at the weekend (ergo; making staff work when they don’t want to) but being consulted over and negotiating changes to those T&Cs, which is the proper process.

That particular process was followed at Northern a couple of years ago. It eventually went to ballot ( for drivers) and was rejected.

 

[Watershed]

I'll believe it when I see it. The DfT has had every opportunity to resolve issues like this years ago, but it has largely sat on its hands. The truth is that it's cheaper to rely on rest day working, and accept that there will be Sundays where there will be many cancellations, than to hire enough people to have Sundays in the working week.

Certainly in the current environment, the Treasury is is no mood to sign off on an increased headcount - and hence accept ongoing liability for an increased subsidy. The extra revenue gained through the improved reliability would be unlikely to come close to paying for the additional costs incurred.

That said, the unions really don't help themselves with the rambunctious manner in which they make statements to the press - which run contrary to the fact that all rail unions say they want Sundays in the working week (because it means more subs for them, of course). And there have been TOCs where generous deals to move Sundays into the working week have been rejected.

In all of this, passengers are given little or no consideration and simply have to put up with whatever rubbish service they're given. The lack of passenger representation is a major issue in the current industry setup, and the DfT has not indicated that they really intend to change this with GBR.

 

[O L Leigh]

It's not reliable. It is unacceptable to be operating the base rail service on overtime. Overtime is for exceptions, and consistent RDW makes staff less safe as they will be more fatigued.

The correct number of staff need to be employed to operate the base service and the day to day accepted level of delays and sickness. Overtime kicks in if you have unexpectedly high sickness or severe disruption.

Wow!! You’ve changed.

Sorry, but it is reliable. Both companies I’ve worked for have had committed Sundays, and the arrangement works fine. It’s only one day of overtime which, compared to what the overtime kings and queens do, is a manageable drop in the ocean. It delivers the promised service at a reasonable cost, which is different where Sundays are purely optional.

The problem with Sundays is not the staffing but the timetable. It’s this, together with necessary engineering works, that doesn’t deliver what people want.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Mar 2022 ==

That said, the unions really don't help themselves with the rambunctious manner in which they make statements to the press - which run contrary to the fact that all rail unions say they want Sundays in the working week (because it means more subs for them, of course). And there have been TOCs where even generous deals to move Sundays into the working week have been rejected.

Yes they do, but they also represent the interests of their current members. If the negotiations for changing existing T&Cs don’t meet their aspirations then they will rightly be rejected. This is not contrary to their stated position.

 

[muz379]

It's not reliable. It is unacceptable to be operating the base rail service on overtime. Overtime is for exceptions, and consistent RDW makes staff less safe as they will be more fatigued.

Well then lets bring the sundays inside the working week . Someone better tell the treasury we need the chequebook though .

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Mar 2022 ==

As someone else has alread intimated this is a largely emotive headline from a source that is known not to be friendly towards unions .

What unions will and rightly should resist is attempts to portray their members who already work at weekends and unsociable times without issue as being inflexible . And also attempts to increase levels of unsociable and weekend working without increases of pay or changes to other terms and conditions that benefit the employee .

There are a lot of practical implications to this as well , for example if someone has a roster where they work lates to earlies to lates to earlies and so on . And they already work 2saturdays out of 3 with a rolling rest day pattern . Its going to be difficult to significantly increase the number of sundays they can work . What the DFT wants is for operators to be able to rip apart rosters and put them back togehter in a more unsociable/weekend heavy way . Unfortunately at many operators for drivers and guards they are negotiable items .

 

[Watershed]

Yes they do, but they also represent the interests of their current members.

There is a degree of conflict of interest there; with the union itself wanting more members so it gets more subs, but the members wanting a deal that suits them as much as possible.

If the negotiations for changing existing T&Cs don’t meet their aspirations then they will rightly be rejected.

That's their right. Although that doesn't necessarily mean it is in their interest to reject it.

This is not contrary to their stated position.

It is, because in most cases the rejection of such deals implies acceptance of the continuation of the current unsatisfactory arrangements.

Certainly I am aware of TOCs where generous pre-Covid deals have been rejected, and yet the unions are now asking for the deal that they rejected to be back on the table. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, not with the parlous state of post-Covid railway finances.

Overall, a degree of realism is needed from all parties, which is unfortunately sorely lacking. And as stated above, the poor passengers are the piggies in the middle in all of this.

 

[185]

Sundays were kept outside the working week to reduce costs by management many years ago. The reduced service pattern is generally enough to find adequate volunteers.

Move Sunday into the working week,
- and the railway must then increase traincrew staffing by 17%.

It's cheaper to keep Sunday as overtime, unless we have a spare pile of cash lying about to hire 17% more staff which in the long run, would cost 3-4 times the cost of a Sunday overtime.

The main dispute I've noticed recently regarding not working Sundays, is at a FirstGroup firm, a dispute which is over £3ish a day in ticket commission... self inflicted by management who've just pocketed £72.1M profits (01/03/22), despite large swathes of missing / deleted / covid-cancelled trains in 2021. I would OLR the whole lot, and get rid of the incompetent, greedy contractors for failing to run trains, then look at the Sunday situation - could it be negotiated as contractual overtime, say a minimum 6 per year?

Wouldn't read too much into the Dirty Torygraph. Perhaps a pile of money buried in the Channel Islands tax haven Brecqhou under the Telegraph owners (Barclay Brothers) beds could pay for the extra staff needed.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Wow!! You’ve changed.

I've not changed. I've always been opposed to the use of overtime for running any day to day business on an ongoing basis. Overtime is for unexpected emergencies.

 

[LittleAH]

The main dispute I've noticed recently regarding not working Sundays, is at a FirstGroup firm, a dispute which is over £3ish a day in ticket commission... self inflicted by management who've just pocketed £72.1M profits (01/03/22), despite large swathes of missing / deleted / covid-cancelled trains in 2021. I would OLR the whole lot, and get rid of the incompetent, greedy contractors for failing to run trains, then look at the Sunday situation - could it be negotiated as contractual overtime, say a minimum 6 per year?

If you genuinely believe TPE made that in profit, more fool you and those that believe it.

 

[43066]

I'll believe it when I see it. The DfT has had every opportunity to resolve issues like this years ago, but it has largely sat on its hands. The truth is that it's cheaper to rely on rest day working, and accept that there will be Sundays where there will be many cancellations, than to hire enough people to have Sundays in the working week.

Certainly in the current environment, the Treasury is is no mood to sign off on an increased headcount - and hence accept ongoing liability for an increased subsidy. The extra revenue gained through the improved reliability would be unlikely to come close to paying for the additional costs incurred.

That said, the unions really don't help themselves with the rambunctious manner in which they make statements to the press - which run contrary to the fact that all rail unions say they want Sundays in the working week (because it means more subs for them, of course). And there have been TOCs where even generous deals to move Sundays into the working week have been rejected.

In all of this, passengers are given little or no consideration and simply have to put up with whatever rubbish service they're given. The lack of passenger representation is a major issue in the current industry setup, and the DfT has not indicated that they really intend to change this with GBR.

Spot on with your first two and final paragraphs, however @O L Leigh ’s point is very valid in relation to the third.

Nothing else to add really!

It is, because in most cases the rejection of such deals implies acceptance of the continuation of the current unsatisfactory arrangements.

Certainly I am aware of TOCs where generous pre-Covid deals have been rejected, and yet the unions are now asking for the deal that they rejected to be back on the table. Unfortunately it doesn't work that way, not with the parlous state of post-Covid railway finances.

If they’re offering to look again at a deal that was previously deemed unacceptable that implies some compromise in light of the current situation.

 

[O L Leigh]

There is a degree of conflict of interest there; with the union itself wanting more members so it gets more subs, but the members wanting a deal that suits them as much as possible.

That's the oft-misquoted version of the union's desire to see full employment, but I'll allow that. If folk wish to see it that way then fine.

That's their right. Although that doesn't necessarily mean it is in their interest to reject it.

I would say that the only people in a position to make any judgement on that are those directly involved/affected.

It is, because in most cases the rejection of such deals implies acceptance of the continuation of the current unsatisfactory arrangements.

No. It implies that the offered compromise does not meet the aspirations of the members.

As to "unsatisfactory", I have to ask unsatisfactory to whom?

 

[Philip]

I can't access the full article - does it say whether the 'Sundays part of the working week' proposal includes station staff; inparticular ticket office workers, or is it just traincrew?

 

[O L Leigh]

I've not changed. I've always been opposed to the use of overtime for running any day to day business on an ongoing basis. Overtime is for unexpected emergencies.

That's a very noble and utopian view, but one that does not reflect the reality of how the railways are currently being run. While the DfT continues to refuse to give the industry a bit of wiggle room we have no way to get enough people productive to make your vision a reality.

At around New Year it was estimated that we had a training backlog that would take 5 years to clear assuming that we took on no more staff. We have since taken on more staff and continue to do so. How long it will take to get the depot fully productive is now unknown, a situation that will only be exacerbated by changing our T&Cs.

I genuinely believe that bringing Sundays into the working week will not be the solution but instead will cause a worsening of service delivery in the short to medium term, especially where rest-day working is not possible. The best compromise for staff, passengers and the industry is committed Sundays.

 

[185]

If you genuinely believe TPE made that in profit, more fool you and those that believe it.

Source: Reach aka Mirror Group Newspapers

Huge profits hike at TransPennine Express revealed

The company's turnover also increased from £290.2m to £437.7m over the same period

www.business-live.co.uk

their source: DfT

 

[bramling]

Good to hear "just for new starters" is a thing somewhere. Like many suggestions I make here it was comprehensively rubbished and now it's happened (my best one so far was e-tickets, which are now ubiquitous).

Unions need to embrace that approach more widely. Yes, protect the position of established staff, but if you take a job then you take it based on the terms offered, and there's no reason those terms have to be the same as existing staff. If you don't like the terms offered when offered a job, you simply don't take it.

The trouble is, this just doesn’t work in practice, especially as many people are completely obsessed with having weekends off at all cost.

If you do something for new starters, much as it’s a sound concept in theory, what will happen before very long is the newbies get the proper hump, and it will simply start causing issues.

Lots of people simply don’t like working weekends, it’s unfortunately as simple as that. Take London Underground who is the ultimate “weekends inside the week” rail operator, and they still have massive problems with weekend coverage.

 

[wobman]

Some tocs have Sundays inside the working week, this doesn't just effect traincrew though.
I know TFW are in talks with the Unions to make Sunday a full working day in the near future, there's no details but they have been in detailed discussions for quite some time.

It's a complicated process making Sunday a full working day, I work Sundays as committed overtime and it's 1 in 3 at my depot.
But tfw run a Sunday service and I know that it couldn't run a full service unless all departments from maintenance depots to cleaners are all on side.

What people have to remember is that operational costs will go up, head counts need to rise by approx 15% I've been told and it's a change in T&Cs so it will need to be voted on by the staff involved.

The Newspapers have an agenda regarding railways staff, so I tend to take there articles with a pinch of salt......

 

[baz962]

To be fair , my last toc and my current one had non Sunday links. No one had the hump with the non Sunday staff there and as far as I can see , not at my current toc either. They accepted jobs without Sundays and I accepted jobs with. At both tocs the Sunday outside got slightly less money. I'm ok with working Sundays . And to be honest after annual leave days , do maybe ten a year max

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you do something for new starters, much as it’s a sound concept in theory, what will happen before very long is the newbies get the proper hump, and it will simply start causing issues.

To which the answer is "you took the job knowing those were the terms on offer, shut up or find another one".

Lots of people simply don’t like working weekends, it’s unfortunately as simple as that. Take London Underground who is the ultimate “weekends inside the week” rail operator, and they still have massive problems with weekend coverage.

I don't either, which is one reason why I chose a career which was based on Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm office work. If you strongly want to work office hours, an operational role on the railway is not the job for you.

There is no shortage of people wanting to work on the railway who are happy to work weekends, so there is no reason to pander to this. Only if they found it hard to recruit would it make sense to make concessions, other than that existing staffs' terms should be protected so long as they remain in their job.

 

[muz379]

To which the answer is "you took the job knowing those were the terms on offer, shut up or find another one".

That attitude towards people that it takes months to train and years to become fully productive rarely if ever ends in a reliable service being delivered by those same staff .

 

[bramling]

To which the answer is "you took the job knowing those were the terms on offer, shut up or find another one".



I don't either, which is one reason why I chose a career which was based on Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm office work. If you strongly want to work office hours, an operational role on the railway is not the job for you.

This is all very well on paper (and I say this from a neutral perspective as, personally, I prefer time off in the week, so this doesn’t affect me), but in the real world it simply doesn’t happen.

People simply find ways of getting weekends off. For the last two years there’s been the option to have Covid symptoms, for example.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That attitude towards people that it takes months to train and years to become fully productive rarely if ever ends in a reliable service being delivered by those same staff .

Arguably it's likely to result in those staff who were unable to read their contract when they signed it to walk, and be replaced with staff who did read it and took the job knowing what it entailed, and will probably do the job with more enthusiasm and better customer service because they won't resent it.

Next thing I'll be reading is that firemen object to being got up in the middle of the night to put a fire out, and prefer a couple of hours' notice so they can have a leisurely breakfast first. It's just ludicrous.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Mar 2022 ==

People simply find ways of getting weekends off. For the last two years there’s been the option to have Covid symptoms, for example.

Fraudulent "sickies" are gross misconduct. This needs monitoring and enforcing most strictly. I am proud to say I have never "pulled a sickie", and never would, and am strongly of the view that doing so is equivalent to theft of a day's wages from the till.