BBC reporting that Agency staff could cover strikes under law change

[footprints]

We turned up for work whilst 90% of the population were paid 80% of their wage for sitting on their backsides and polluting Bournemouth beach.

90% of the population weren't furloughed.

 

[DanNCL]

I think what it really means is that companies such as LSL, DRS and West Coast could be contracted in by TOCs to operate services for them on strike days. Of course that’ll make little difference with the signallers on strike!

 

[dctraindriver]

Me personally, I blame Unions and rail staff. By all means it is important to have all good round conditions but they are paid more than enough and have good conditions. It is just sheer greed all this. They are driving trains… they aren’t brain surgeons, air traffic controllers or fighter pilots. They need to get a grip. If they aren’t happy in their job then get another, don’t affect the livelihood and social life of many thousands who rely on the service.

Well that’s cheered me up this morning. Yep it’s all down to us and our insatiable requirement to be considerably richer than you. I sound like a conservative member ;-0

 

[Chucky]

You know, it is so blindingly obvious what the government's game plan is it would almost be funny if it where not so serious

They want this fight, and the RMT are are running right into a turkey shoot.

I completely agree. The government have deliberately engineered this whole situation and the RMT are playing right into their hands by calling three days of strikes in a week, something that will cripple a lot of people financially.

The railway runs on overtime. An overtime ban would have been much more effective and harder to plan contingency for. Even an overtime ban for two weeks of every four week pay cycle.

Let's say these strikes go ahead and the government don't budge, then what? What's RMT's plan B? Another week of strikes? An overtime ban AFTER they've just skinted all their members?

This isn't the 1980s. Most railway staff don't live in council houses any more. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis and it won't take much for the strikes to crumble. Maybe two weeks for the cracks to show and three weeks for them to collapse altogether. No more. Anyone would be stupid to believe otherwise.

The government want further legislation to undermine trade unions, they want to make massive cuts on the railway, and the RMT leadership are handing the opportunity to them on a silver platter. They are not boxing clever at all, and are leading the members over a cliff with this suicidal strategy.

I hope common sense prevails before next week, but I doubt it.

 

[Bantamzen]

I have just pointed out no offer has been made. So lets see what is before we start calling the RMT unrealistic.

So wait, the RMT haven't yet got to the point of an offer but have balloted members on industrial action? As a long standing union member, and having spent many years as a rep I would be seriously uncomfortable asking fee paying members to lose wages without at least a clear ask or on an actual offer.

We are not to blame for Johnsons pandemic spending and Sunaks covid fraud playgrounds, they are.

No you are not, and neither is the rest of the public. That will be dealt with in 2024, assuming of course that the opposition can muster some form of alternative, which sadly at the moment they are not. However in the meantime there is the stark reality that the pandemic spending still has to be accounted for. And believe me, public sector spending is the first place they will look to in order to try and rebalance the books. Let's face it, they have no problems in losing 93K jobs in the civil service, do you really think they are not going to look at what they probably see as an expensive train set for more savings. I mean everyone has a car right, so where's the harm?

 

[Falcon1200]

This really is a nonsensical idea ! There is no possible way that agency staff could be trained, assessed and passed competent to carry out such safety-critical roles as Signaller, Driver or Guard, and if you don't have those jobs covered, you don't have trains.

While I have serious concerns about the state of our railway just now, and its future, should the staff in my former workplace be called out on strike, under no circumstances whatsoever would I return to my old job, and I would be surprised if many, if any, other retired rail staff would either.

 

[John Bishop]

Me personally, I blame Unions and rail staff. By all means it is important to have all good round conditions but they are paid more than enough and have good conditions. It is just sheer greed all this. They are driving trains… they aren’t brain surgeons, air traffic controllers or fighter pilots. They need to get a grip. If they aren’t happy in their job then get another, don’t affect the livelihood and social life of many thousands who rely on the service.

Stop embarrassing yourself! You very clearly know nothing about any of this judging by your quoted diatribe. Go and troll another forum eh!

 

[Bantamzen]

This really is a nonsensical idea ! There is no possible way that agency staff could be trained, assessed and passed competent to carry out such safety-critical roles as Signaller, Driver or Guard, and if you don't have those jobs covered, you don't have trains.

While I have serious concerns about the state of our railway just now, and its future, should the staff in my former workplace be called out on strike, under no circumstances whatsoever would I return to my old job, and I would be surprised if many, if any, other retired rail staff would either.

And it won't happen. However the fact that the government are talking in terms of an agency should be be ringing alarm bells in the industry. Because they could easily start to use agencies to hire in new staff, under new T&Cs. Just saying....

 

[theageofthetra]

If they do it's kept very quiet.

Why does the regulator tolerate this?

 

[yorksrob]

Also worrying is the fact that the Government are proposing to impose reduced timetables on non strike days to prevent staff recouping their losses on overtime.

So not only do we have a strike on some days, we have the Government imposing an overtime ban the rest of the week.

Shapps clearly has no consideration for passengers as I can't see many of us supporting reduced timetables on behalf of the Treasury.

 

[ANorthernGuard]

Why does the regulator tolerate this?

Why do you think?

 

[skyhigh]

Also worrying is the fact that the Government are proposing to impose reduced timetables on non strike days to prevent staff recouping their losses on overtime.

Is that true?

 

[yorksrob]

Is that true?

It was on the BBC news bulletin this morning.

 

[cambsy]

I have read, that the government is going to ban overtime, to the strikers, on following days of the strike, so they cant recoup lost wages.

 

[theageofthetra]

Do RMT (or any other rail union) company council lose pay on a strike day?

 

[jon0844]

So wait, the RMT haven't yet got to the point of an offer but have balloted members on industrial action? As a long standing union member, and having spent many years as a rep I would be seriously uncomfortable asking fee paying members to lose wages without at least a clear ask or on an actual offer.

I thought the DfT had clearly said zero percent to rail workers (although I believe they also said those on salaries below a certain amount would get 1% - but that amount being so low almost nobody would be earning that) so I assume that can be counted as an offer and has triggered the action?

 

[Need2]

Me personally, I blame Unions and rail staff. By all means it is important to have all good round conditions but they are paid more than enough and have good conditions. It is just sheer greed all this.

Who are you to say that someone gets paid ‘enough’?
You also cannot go around comparing drivers pay (which this is not about) or any other rail staff salary with that of brain surgeon’s and airline pilots.
A job gets paid what it gets paid not or nor should it be paid in comparison with something or someone else.
Politics aside then, should anyone get paid more than the PM, arguably the most ‘important’ job in an the country?
Get over it man!

 

[LowLevel]

I think what it really means is that companies such as LSL, DRS and West Coast could be contracted in by TOCs to operate services for them on strike days. Of course that’ll make little difference with the signallers on strike!

You'd not get many trains out of them. They don't have that many crews, even if they were trained on the TOC traction.

 

[DanNCL]

You'd not get many trains out of them. They don't have that many crews, even if they were trained on the TOC traction.

I don't think anyone was suggesting there'd be no impact from strike action. What such hire ins from those companies would likely achieve is operation of some short but important services in a similar fashion to what West Coast did for Windermere in 2018, so that the TOCs can focus the staff that aren't striking elsewhere.

 

[eldomtom2]

This really is a nonsensical idea ! There is no possible way that agency staff could be trained, assessed and passed competent to carry out such safety-critical roles as Signaller, Driver or Guard, and if you don't have those jobs covered, you don't have trains.

You assume this legislation is primarily aimed at the railway unions. I don't think it is.

 

[uww11x]

This simply won't happen. Non Story

 

[Master29]

Rail strikes: Agency workers could be called in to replace striking workers, report says

It comes as the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers' union prepares to strike on 21, 23, and 25 June in a dispute over pay and redundancies.

news.sky.com

Totally agree with this aspiration. The railway is run for the public. A certain amount of staff need to wake up and smell the coffee. It is about time someone stood up to these Unions who quite clearly bully and dictate to passengers when or if they can travel. Our rail system in the UK is a true embarrassment and the sooner these Unions are put in their place the better for the travelling public.

Hmm...... Remind me who should be smelling the coffee?

 

[westv]

It’s not drivers who are striking!!!

Not quite true. ASLEF drivers at Greater Anglia (23/6) and Hull Trains (26/6) are striking.

 

[ComUtoR]

Nobody knows, It's called Shapps making up crap and writing it on the back of a fag packet before they hit the Sunday politics shows.

My TOC uses agency staff on a regular basis. Whilst they are currently not allowed to work during a strike, we still use them.

I had never considered the minutiae until now.

 

[zwk500]

I have read, that the government is going to ban overtime, to the strikers, on following days of the strike, so they cant recoup lost wages.

Under what mechanism and authority is the government planning to do this?

There is a lot of shouting going on from the government, but I suspect they'll all go the same way as Boris's big ideas. In the bin. The big giveaway that this is just ministers talking out the back of their arse is the descriptions of 'Marxists Union Barons'.

 

[Need2]

I have read, that the government is going to ban overtime, to the strikers, on following days of the strike, so they cant recoup lost wages.!

Schapps really is an odious little attention seeker and headline grabber like most politicians and says what he thinks the public will like.
For how long ‘after’ will strikers be ‘banned’ from doing overtime?
In the short term it would be possible to implement but after a week or 2, who knows!
Just like he said all over the press and news tv that he was “stripping SE of its
franchise”, failing to add that all he was doing was not awarding a follow on contract to them.
Now he’s saying he’ll get agency workers in to run the railway when anyone goes on strike.
All hot air and piffle.

 

[Deepgreen]

I'm not totally in disagreement. It's one reason why I personally have no intention of striking, but I will say this. All the guff from Shapps is likely to make me change my mind. I'm no fan of the RMT, but I dislike this government a damn sight more. I don't dance to click bait designed to make the right wing press readers drool. Something for the grey rinse brigade to get excited over whilst eating their Sunday morning cornflakes. Shapps is a idiot who has little or no understanding of how the railway actually functions at ground level.

But the RMT are idiots also. What was all the support Brexit about? What was all this "Public ownership of the railways" all about? We have public ownership now in effect, and look where we are because of it. Not once have the RMT sat with their members and fully explained to them what the government running the railways would mean. It was all a political crusade. Well now we know what it means. So no, I am no RMT fan. But I'm damned if I will be brow beaten by a government led by a pathological liar.

Well said. The trouble with 'public ownership' is that the principle is beyond dispute, but the practicalities of restoring a sensible system after decades of privatisation horror and waste are very hard to overcome. It will cost a vast amount of money to undo the damage inflicted by right-wing dogma on a sector that could never support it - there are two fundamental things absent from the railway for privatisation to succeed - genuine competition and genuine profit - so, because of this, the 'hidden' costs of subsidising the TOCs, etc. have been horrendous. The economy simply cannot bear the cost of full-scale, properly-managed nationalisation at present so we limp on with a wounded railway with fewer passengers. This is not going to be helped by demands from the RMT, and there is a risk of seriously alienating a public who will so often be far worse off than RMT's members.

 

[yorksrob]

Well said. The trouble with 'public ownership' is that the principle is beyond dispute, but the practicalities of restoring a sensible system after decades of privatisation horror and waste are very hard to overcome. It will cost a vast amount of money to undo the damage inflicted by right-wing dogma on a sector that could never support it - there are two fundamental things absent from the railway for privatisation to succeed - genuine competition and genuine profit - so, because of this, the 'hidden' costs of subsidising the TOCs, etc. have been horrendous. The economy simply cannot bear the cost of full-scale, properly-managed nationalisation at present so we limp on with a wounded railway with fewer passengers. This is not going to be helped by demands from the RMT, and there is a risk of seriously alienating a public who will so often be far worse off than RMT's members.

Indeed.

The privatisation fiasco has baked in artificial costs such as train leasing which look unlikely to be addressed anytime soon.

 

[GB]

I think some people are misinterpreting what schapps said about not doing overtime following strikes.

From the bbc…https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-61773437

“Meanwhile, writing in the Sun on Sunday, Mr Shapps warned rail workers who plan to strike this month that they will not be able to work overtime on subsequent days to top-up pay they will lose as a result of taking part in the action. It is is understood this is because rail companies may decide to run restricted timetables after the strike days.”

 

[Taunton]

Are there many highly skilled agency staff sitting around who can Drive trains? If there were I'm sure they would be, well driving trains now. Good luck with this pipe dream.

Actually if you look at other skilled jobs that have a proportion of agency staff, such as medical (not just nurses, its even doctors now), you find a good number of fully qualified staff there who previously got training and experience as employees, but no longer care for all the associated baggage of lower pay, excessive internal politics, etc, that direct employees get stuck with.