Back to square one. RMT - RDG talks end.

[43066]

sensible pay deal getting towards inflation

It wouldn’t even need to be anything approaching inflation - 5-7% has been accepted elsewhere.

 

[Tetchytyke]

I work on the railway, and will happily bet you any money you like that there will be cuts in services.

It's clear that this government are only interested in (mis)managed decline, especially now that privatisation has pretty conclusively failed.

 

[Bald Rick]

But we all know the government could solve the dispute immediately by allowing the TOCs to negotiate. So why do you see this as a problem caused by strikes, rather than by government intransigence?

That wasn’t my point. My point is simply that for every strike the industry loses money; there’s no more money in the transport opex budget, therefore that money has to be saved somewhere. And that somewhere is going to be by reducing services.

As I’m sure you know, negotiations have been going on for some time. Whilst the Government haven’t exactly helped (the changing of Government, twice, has been an issue no doubt), I have no doubt the unions haven’t been lillywhite either.

 

[eldomtom2]

The Tories are dreadful but I'm not backing a pro-Brexit union. They're complicit in why we've ended up in this situation where mega pay rises are needed. I feel for the members as they've been sold down the river big time.

Yes, because as we all know the EU are having a jolly old time with no cost of living problems whatsover...

 

[All Line Rover]

I have long thought that at some stage the Government would try Fire and rehire and still think that is the case.

They should try it. End the employment contracts of all strikers and offer to rehire them on substantially worse terms (but still generous, vs other public sector jobs), which would go some way to reducing the bloated costs of England's rail industry (next stops: procurement and rolling stock).

A minority wouldn't accept the new terms; fair enough, good luck to them. In normal times suddenly losing 10%-20% of your workforce would be noticeable, but not when many TOCs can hardly run a skeleton service as it is.

The majority would accept, on discovering that (i) particularly outside of London, there are no other glamourously paid jobs available to workers with vocational qualifications, and (ii) being unemployed in the middle of a recession with rampant inflation isn't attractive to someone previously earning £40k+.

 

[nedchester]

Some parts of the industry are more vulnerable to fire and rehire than others, but overall I don't think it's a tactic that would work.

Which is why they may try it incrementally.......not saying it'll work but you can guarantee they're thinking about it.......

 

[PaulMc7]

Yes, because as we all know the EU are having a jolly old time with no cost of living problems whatsover...

I never said there wasn't any issues with the EU but if you backed Brexit with the Tories anywhere near it, it wouldn't require much thought to realise you were digging your own grave especially for a union. It was only ever going to be an utter disaster.

 

[66701GBRF]

That wasn’t my point. My point is simply that for every strike the industry loses money; there’s no more money in the transport opex budget, therefore that money has to be saved somewhere. And that somewhere is going to be by reducing services.

Maybe then an equilibrium will be met with companies no longer reliant on workers working OT to cover services.

 

[baz962]

They should try it. End of employment contracts of all strikers and offer to rehire them on substantially worse terms (but still generous, vs other public sector jobs) that would go some way to reducing the bloated costs of England's rail industry (next stops: procurement and rolling stock).

A minority wouldn't accept the new terms; fair enough, good luck to them. In normal times suddenly losing 10%-20% of your workforce would be noticeable, but not when many TOCs can hardly run a skeleton service as it is.

The majority would accept, on discovering that (i) particularly outside of London, there are no other glamourously paid jobs available to workers with vocational qualifications, and (ii) being unemployed in the middle of a recession with rampant inflation isn't attractive to someone previously earning £40k+.

Problem with your little gem here is that there is nearly 30k difference between the top and bottom paying driving jobs. Everyone would start bailing for the better paid work I should think and have an even greater merry-go-round, costing loads in training all the time.

 

[nedchester]

They should try it. End the employment contracts of all strikers and offer to rehire them on substantially worse terms (but still generous, vs other public sector jobs) that would go some way to reducing the bloated costs of England's rail industry (next stops: procurement and rolling stock).

A minority wouldn't accept the new terms; fair enough, good luck to them. In normal times suddenly losing 10%-20% of your workforce would be noticeable, but not when many TOCs can hardly run a skeleton service as it is.

The majority would accept, on discovering that (i) particularly outside of London, there are no other glamourously paid jobs available to workers with vocational qualifications, and (ii) being unemployed in the middle of a recession with rampant inflation isn't attractive to someone previously earning £40k+.

I do think the majority would accept (for the reasons I mention above) it but it would still leave considerable gaps in certain parts of the industry. Many parts of the network are already considerably short staffed and the slightest reduction in staffing levels would cause chaos.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Which is why they may try it incrementally.......not saying it'll work but you can guarantee they're thinking about it.......

Aye. I still think the guard/OBS dispute was just testing the water, and lessons will have been learned.

Drivers are the big one they can't fire and rehire though. Too much risk too many drivers would tell them where to shove it.

 

[bramling]

They should try it. End the employment contracts of all strikers and offer to rehire them on substantially worse terms (but still generous, vs other public sector jobs), which would go some way to reducing the bloated costs of England's rail industry (next stops: procurement and rolling stock).

A minority wouldn't accept the new terms; fair enough, good luck to them. In normal times suddenly losing 10%-20% of your workforce would be noticeable, but not when many TOCs can hardly run a skeleton service as it is.

The majority would accept, on discovering that (i) particularly outside of London, there are no other glamourously paid jobs available to workers with vocational qualifications, and (ii) being unemployed in the middle of a recession with rampant inflation isn't attractive to someone previously earning £40k+.

The big risk with this is you’d then be left with a workforce pretty much permanently split between the “living dead” and saboteur boxes. The implications of that, for an industry which largely runs on goodwill, would be pretty horrendous going forward. The other risk is if your 10-20% are vital staff, or those possessing specialist knowledge, which could easily be the case.

You might be able to get away with it in the case of certain grades, especially staff staff. But pretty risky for train or control staff.

 

[JonathanH]

Drivers are the big one they can't fire and rehire though. Too much risk too many drivers would tell them where to shove it.

If they found themselves with insufficient drivers they would just have to prioritise certain routes over others, saving costs in the process.

 

[66701GBRF]

They should try it. End the employment contracts of all strikers and offer to rehire them on substantially worse terms (but still generous, vs other public sector jobs), which would go some way to reducing the bloated costs of England's rail industry (next stops: procurement and rolling stock).

A minority wouldn't accept the new terms; fair enough, good luck to them. In normal times suddenly losing 10%-20% of your workforce would be noticeable, but not when many TOCs can hardly run a skeleton service as it is.

The majority would accept, on discovering that (i) particularly outside of London, there are no other glamourously paid jobs available to workers with vocational qualifications, and (ii) being unemployed in the middle of a recession with rampant inflation isn't attractive to someone previously earning £40k+.

...and watch that sort of action proliferate into other industries. Genius. I don't know what sort of job you do but would you find fire and rehire acceptable at your place?

 

[Tetchytyke]

They should try it. End the employment contracts of all strikers and offer to rehire them on substantially worse terms (but still generous, vs other public sector jobs), which would go some way to reducing the bloated costs of England's rail industry (next stops: procurement and rolling stock).

If any of this were remotely true there wouldn't be staff shortages across the industry, and there wouldn't be an unhealthy over-reliance on rest day working and overtime.

The ORR are more a political body than a regulator these days, which is pretty shameful on them.

 

[All Line Rover]

Drivers are the big one they can't fire and rehire though. Too much risk too many drivers would tell them where to shove it.

That's fine, they can go and find another job.

The rail industry can put up with some more disruption and cuts to services. We're already enjoying plenty of this.

 

[Tetchytyke]

If they found themselves with insufficient drivers they would just have to prioritise certain routes over others, saving costs in the process.

Most of the fixed costs are there regardless of whether you run a train or not.

As for "prioritising routes", how's it going for Avanti?

It's not like the ferry industry where you can sack everyone and bring in foreign labour on slave wages.

 

[Iskra]

The sad thing is, there are no winners in all this, as ultimately the passengers are going to give up bothering with the railway. And when there’s less passengers, there’s even less money for pay rises and more justification for service cuts and headcount reduction.

 

[bramling]

If they found themselves with insufficient drivers they would just have to prioritise certain routes over others, saving costs in the process.

Hardly an election-winning strategy, though, nor even an election-damage-limiting one. There must be people in the Conservative party who care sufficiently that they want to make at least some attempt at damage limitation. Indeed I get the feeling Sunak is sufficiently lacking in self-awareness that he still thinks he can win.

 

[O L Leigh]

If they found themselves with insufficient drivers they would just have to prioritise certain routes over others, saving costs in the process.

… whilst presumably having to shell out for the recruitment and training necessary to bring driver numbers back up to establishment.

 

[lammergeier]

If they found themselves with insufficient drivers they would just have to prioritise certain routes over others, saving costs in the process.

All that would happen is the TOCs would become a training academy for the freight operators who would happily pay drivers more. It would cost an absolute fortune for the TOCs as drivers would get trained up, wait a year or so then leave, and the freight companies would never need to train another driver again.

It's already happening with dozens of drivers leaving the lower paid TOCs for freight. If they come after pensions or pay then the queues will be out of the door.

 

[TT-ONR-NRN]

The amount of “if the NHS can strike why shouldn’t we,” suggests some believe the two are remotely comparable?

 

[baz962]

… whilst presumably having to shell out for the recruitment and training necessary to bring driver numbers back up to establishment.

And a few years ago Thameslink were struggling with instructors and taking two years to train new drivers and that was pre covid. Destroy the goodwill of current drivers and instructors and it could take a very long time to train new drivers.

 

[theking]

Fire and rehire lol yeah good luck with that.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The sad thing is, there are no winners in all this, as ultimately the passengers are going to give up bothering with the railway. And when there’s less passengers, there’s even less money and more justification for service cuts and headcount reduction.

Indeed. I'm across at Christmas to visit family and I've made arrangements that don't involve going anywhere near a train. No point in the current climate.

The government seem to think that it suits their interests to provoke strike action right across the whole public service, so there's little scope for change. Wage rises causing inflation has, as a theory, been pretty comprehensively debunked. Inflation is caused by printing money, which they've been doing for years as "quantitative easing".

This is just a power play. I'm not sure what they hope to achieve, but they seem determined to achieve it.

 

[JonathanH]

It's already happening with dozens of drivers leaving the lower paid TOCs for freight. If they come after pensions or pay then the queues will be out of the door.

What if the freight companies don't offer pensions as good as those the passenger companies offer?

 

[brad465]

The amount of “if the NHS can strike why shouldn’t we,” suggests some believe the two are remotely comparable?

There is now I think an increasing risk of a "general strike", where every sector that has unions supporting strike action coordinate them for the same days. The TUC conference was going to discuss this in September at its conference, until the Queen's death forced a postponement. The Government will find a hard time being able to scapegoat one particular sector if this happens and the level of disruption across the country will likely bring back memories of covid lockdowns. Had a deal actually been reached with the RMT and put in place, that's one major union not contributing to a potential general strike.

 

[bramling]

Indeed. I'm across at Christmas to visit family and I've made arrangements that don't involve going anywhere near a train. No point in the current climate.

The government seem to think that it suits their interests to provoke strike action right across the whole public service, so there's little scope for change. Wage rises causing inflation has, as a theory, been pretty comprehensively debunked. Inflation is caused by printing money, which they've been doing for years as "quantitative easing".

This is just a power play. I'm not sure what they hope to achieve, but they seem determined to achieve it.

A lot of people are saying they feel this government is laughing at the population. It certainly feels that way, and whilst a little while ago I’d have said some of the more extreme polling figures were unlikely to happen in practice, now I’m not so sure.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Nov 2022 ==

There is now I think an increasing risk of a "general strike", where every sector that has unions supporting strike action coordinate them for the same days. The TUC conference was going to discuss this in September at its conference, until the Queen's death forced a postponement. The Government will find a hard time being able to scapegoat one particular sector if this happens and the level of disruption across the country will likely bring back memories of covid lockdowns.

I can certainly see it happening.

 

[lammergeier]

What agreement? The government aren't particularly fussed. Every strike taken represents money they don't need to pay to the striking workers.

That wasn’t my point. My point is simply that for every strike the industry loses money; there’s no more money in the transport opex budget, therefore that money has to be saved somewhere. And that somewhere is going to be by reducing services.

As I’m sure you know, negotiations have been going on for some time. Whilst the Government haven’t exactly helped (the changing of Government, twice, has been an issue no doubt), I have no doubt the unions haven’t been lillywhite either.

Well both things can't be true at once.

I'm sure the government will try and blame striking workers for the cuts they want to introduce, but look at the appalling timetables some TOCs are running with some places completely cut off and others having had their service decimated, and that was from before any industrial action. The DfT can say whatever they like but nobody believes it's true that if there were no strikes there'd be no more cuts, it's an absolutely ridiculous thing to suggest. As I said in another thread on the subject, when ALL government departments are facing cuts, why is it only transport where the workers are being blamed? The Tories won't be able to isolate rail cuts from the rest of their austerity agenda.

 

[Thirteen]

There is now I think an increasing risk of a "general strike", where every sector that has unions supporting strike action coordinate them for the same days. The TUC conference was going to discuss this in September at its conference, until the Queen's death forced a postponement. The Government will find a hard time being able to scapegoat one particular sector if this happens and the level of disruption across the country will likely bring back memories of covid lockdowns.

I'm not sure a general strike is a good idea, it didn't work in 1926 and isn't it technically illegal to have support strikes?