What I'm not sure has been touched on yet is how the RDG proposal throws catering grades under the bus, possibly even more so than station staff.
Early on in the document, there's plenty of spin on "On board train crew roles" with a minor direction to an appendix, which clarifies that "onboard hosts" and "catering staff" are not within this scope.
The heavy implication from the section in which it discusses catering is that the:
will likely result in a reduction of the headcount, as the section then goes to discuss arrangements for what will happen for displaced staff. Said arrangements are particularly vague and have unhelpful expectations such as:
Which is of course particularly difficult for on-board grades, to use an example, what options realistically are there for a Service Manager for Avanti based in Liverpool? The likelihood of there being vacant on-board or station roles at their location will be minimal unless there is a sudden increase in services or sudden glut of retirements. Say the only role available is a Dispatch CSA at Crewe; or something in the office in Preston. It adds an extra 45 minutes onto their commute each morning and is a different type of work from the one they are doing. Is it reasonable? Because...
I started out in catering grades, however many years ago, as did many of the colleagues I work with now who have progressed and grown through the industry. The above reference to "catering proposition that is affordable and valued by passengers" is only half the story, it puts the focus on the tea trolley not the person, actually the other half of the story is that you have an additional trained member of staff on the train (in some cases where units are non-walkthrough they may be the only member of customer facing staff in that unit) so when it all goes wrong you have someone with the training and experience to deal with it. It's akin to saying that revenue protection is just penalty faring folk without tickets; yes, but you also have a trained member of rail staff carrying the ticket machine who if there's a fire or security incident or whatnot will know what to do.
If I was still in catering grades I would want to see some more firm assurance of what the arrangements for alternative employment would be if the review determined that there were too few brews sold. Something along the lines of:
- Option of voluntary redundancy with a suitable package, then
- Staff who cannot do safety critical roles for eg medical reasons should be first in the queue for suitable non-safety critical employment, then
- All vacancies first being advertised to staff 'at risk', if not successful then
- A fair one-to-one process of looking at what jobs are available and could be allocated, then
- Re-allocation to some form of revenue & customer service role at current location on existing salary (unless the role salary is higher), even if this means expanding or indeed creating said revenue team.
This would protect the on-train customer service presence, give folk an out who would prefer to leave the business, support colleagues with medical restrictions and give some clarity to staff who may be displaced as to what their role will eventually be and indeed an assurance that there will still be
a role for them in the industry and it isn't an attempt at cutting staff numbers by the back door.
