XC Industrial Action from 23rd August onwards…

[43066]

Yes the public would, but unless the employee's contract is so insanely specific that it says duties involve ticket checks not using electronic devices, that's not failing to uphold an agreement.

Not if it’s in a setting where agreements outside of the employment contract also govern workplace practices. Many (in fact most) employers have these arrangements, the difference on the railway is that they’re agreed with relevant unions and cannot be unilaterally changed or ignored without creating a dispute.

 

[Starmill]

Looking from the private sector and looking at the private sector. Cross Country is a private sector company.

Not for long...

 

[father_jack]

As is getting an agreement to do checks, then some members it applied to don't bother to actually do it. Agreement is then effectively killed by members not performing what Union agreed . Not surprising other side drop their side of agreement too.

Shouldn't complain about upholding, unless union strictly ensures its members do their part, rather than letting members not uphold. It is 2 sided

We all know who the colleagues who don't go through the train are. But it's up to managers to manage their performance, not your football for convenient kicking called the RMT........

But some managers aren't managed from above so as a result dont manage downwards.

 

[m0ffy]

We all know who the colleagues who don't go through the train are. But it's up to managers to manage their performance, not your football for convenient kicking called the RMT........

But some managers aren't managed from above so as a result dont manage downwards.

100%. You cannot punish the rule breakers by breaching the contract with everyone else. XC could have a number of identical tribunal claims to defend here, the cost of which would likely be much higher than simply paying the commission they’ve stolen.

 

[Harpo]

In this case it appears the company has offered to make payment but then reneged on that.

I'd even wonder if it's XC that halted the payment.

 

[ainsworth74]

I do find it bizarre that the RMT choose to frame ticket scanning in this manner, talk about shooting yourself and your members in the foot.

The obvious way to address scanning and why guards should get a payment for scanning is to simply point to the fact that previously guards would all (or nearly all?) receive commission for on train ticket sales. This incentivised them to undertake revenue duties (win for the train company) and was a nice little boost to their income (win for the guard). Everyone's incentives were aligned.

Since then the world has moved on (and quickly, at lot of this changed over Covid!).

Now far more tickets are e-tickets which means fewer tickets are sold onboard as more people move to online sales options, at the same time penalty fare schemes have been expanded encouraging buying before travel (not specific to XC but relevant to TOCs like Northern and TPE) meaning more TVMs at more stations (more relevant to XC) leading to even few on train sales for guards. This reduces the incentive to undertake revenue duties and leads to a bit of a pay cut by stealth even for the guards who remain keen to do revenue.

How do you bring the incentives back into alignment? Not by arguing that using an electonic device to scan a ticket is somehow magically different to use a clipper or squiggling with a pen and therefore warranting an extra payment. That's barmy. No, you point to your members bottom line and simply pointing out that if members recieve a small payment per scan (I believe 2/3p per scan is the going rate?) then that gives them a strong incentive to get on doing revenue and helps cushion them against the lost comission caused by changes outside their control.

The former makes the Union and its members looks, frankly, dinosaurish. The latter seems like a perfectly reasonable request in light of changed circumstances and something that anyone with half a braincell could look at and go "yeah, that seems reasonable".

Why, therefore, the RMT persist on the stupid framing is beyond me. But hey, what do I know?

Eitherway hopefully XC will relent and actually agree to payment for ticket scans. It's a win for everyone. First hand experience as a passenger of Northern suggests to me that once guards were getting a small payment per scan they not only started scanning tickets reliably (before it would often just be a glance, including of smart cards which you have no idea if it has ticket on or not without scanning!) but they started doing revenue far far more frequently. Rare is the train in my neck of the woods that the guard doesn't make it around at least once.

It's actually a little annoying, time was that if there was a guard change at Middlesbrough the replacement would ask for tickets from Middlesbrough (their colleague having no doubt told them they'd done tickets as far as Middlesbrough). Now they want all tickets again so they can get the payment for the scans

 

[Wyrleybart]

I may be wrong but I am under the impression that when the TOCs were converted to TSCs then all responsibility for revenue collection passed to the DfT BEFORE GBR took over.

 

[Snow1964]

I may be wrong but I am under the impression that when the TOCs were converted to TSCs then all responsibility for revenue collection passed to the DfT BEFORE GBR took over.

I think there is some confusion here, under the management contracts, TOCs collect the revenue and hand it to DfT who effectively guarantee any shortfall. It's not that DfT now directly employ revenue collection and enforcement staff

 

[43066]

I'd even wonder if it's XC that halted the payment.

Good point. There do seem to be some operators who think the last government is still in power There are some where negotiations have been pragmatic and sensible, so as ever it’s difficult to know who is ultimately responsible.

I think there is some confusion here, under the management contracts, TOCs collect the revenue and hand it to DfT who effectively guarantee any shortfall. It's not that DfT now directly employ revenue collection and enforcement staff

But the point being made is that TOCs are no longer “on the hook” for revenue. They are paid a management fee to work the franchise - thus it makes no difference to them whether guards scan or don’t - hence your suggestion above that guards making the company “richer” will result in agreements being more likely to be followed is plainly wrong.

 

[Carlisle]

not your football for convenient kicking called the RMT........

Is the person who scans my phone/ticket at the turnstile of my local football club ilikley to be payed per scan ?

 

[WelshBluebird]

Is the person who scans my phone/ticket at the turnstile of my local football club ilikley to be payed per scan ?

The person at the turnstile wouldn't have previously gained part of their income from payments that have been reduced due to the introduction of etickets, and more importantly wouldn't have had an agreement from their employer to get paid for each scan that the employer has broken.

I appreciate it sounds silly, but even as someone outside the industry, if my employer wanted to introduce something that would reduce my income then of course I'd want that reduction to be made up in another way. Maybe pay per scan is the wrong way and it should have been a flat pay increase, but the general gist is the same.

 

[Harpo]

Is the person who scans my phone/ticket at the turnstile of my local football club ilikley to be payed per scan ?

Is the person who scans your ticket at local football club likely to have any other significant responsibilities let alone safety critical tasks?

 

[Carlisle]

Is the person who scans your ticket at local football club likely to have any other significant responsibilities let alone safety critical tasks?

Quite possibly given event & crowd management has evolved considerably since stewards did little more than herd people into pens .

 

[YorkshireBear]

Is the person who scans your ticket at local football club likely to have any other significant responsibilities let alone safety critical tasks?

For me that isn't the argument to use here. Especially given crowd and event management, you don't know what else they do.

The argument is that ticket selling commission was part of their income and E-tickets has removed it, that justifies wanting to be paid for scanning in a reasonable way which is hard to argue with in my eyes. And I say that as someone who when I first heard tickets scanning was being paid for, I thought it was a joke, but I had completely forgotten about commission from ticket sales.

 

[Broucek]

How do you bring the incentives back into alignment? Not by arguing that using an electonic device to scan a ticket is somehow magically different to use a clipper or squiggling with a pen and therefore warranting an extra payment. That's barmy. No, you point to your members bottom line and simply pointing out that if members recieve a small payment per scan (I believe 2/3p per scan is the going rate?) then that gives them a strong incentive to get on doing revenue and helps cushion them against the lost comission caused by changes outside their controll

The former makes the Union and its members looks, frankly, dinosaurish. The latter seems like a perfectly reasonable request in light of changed circumstances and something that anyone with half a braincell could look at and go "yeah, that seems reasonable".

Thanks for this. As someone not in the rail industry who advises companies on pay for a living, what you say makes perfect sense and I now understand the dispute better.

My anecdotal experience from these boards is that some people in the rail industry seem to have very little appreciation of how their "group think" appears to people on the outside...

 

[Harpo]

My anecdotal experience from these boards is that some people in the rail industry seem to have very little appreciation of how their "group think" appears to people on the outside...

For ‘group think’ read unionised?

I can certainly appreciate how those in the outside world, screwed to the ground, on a minimum wage might not get how a successful unionised workforce has negotiated the sale of its labour (the only thing it can sell) so effectively.

 

[Carlisle]

Many (in fact most) employers have these arrangements, the difference on the railway is that they’re agreed with relevant unions and cannot be unilaterally changed or ignored without creating a dispute.

Some on here regularly claim management have a huge array of options & powers at their disposal so disputes should almost never occur but your post suggests they’ve often very little room for manoeuvre before ballots are being organised.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

I'm not defending it or criticising it, but when you think that (in theory) ticket sales onboard should be very low or even non existent, that's lot of commission conductors won't be getting that they used to.

So it's only really replacing that. And when they can uncover a hell of a lot of data from scans in the back office that previously even an RPI would have had to be lucky to work out, and then claw back thousands from passengers breaking the law, you could definitely argue that 2p is a very worthwhile price to pay for that data.

Exactly, the average at my TOC is 100k scans per week, at just 3p that's £12k per period, total.

Our average commission has dropped from around 120-150 to 30-50 per period.

We've got around 800 guards, so that's only about £15 per guard per period Vs £90-100 that they are down in commission. It's just something to soften the loss of commission.

 

[OscarH]

Exactly, the average at my TOC is 100k scans per week, at just 3p that's £12k per period, total.

Our average commission has dropped from around 120-150 to 30-50 per period.

We've got around 800 guards, so that's only about £15 per guard per period Vs £90-100 that they are down in commission. It's just something to soften the loss of commission.

Yeah, it's just a complete no-brainer all around. Can only hope all TOCs eventually do implement these

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Yeah, it's just a complete no-brainer all around. Can only hope all TOCs eventually do implement these

We keep asking and it gets ignored. Which, given how many settlements they get using scan data seems like it will end in dispute at some point

 

[Bletchleyite]

We've got around 800 guards, so that's only about £15 per guard per period Vs £90-100 that they are down in commission. It's just something to soften the loss of commission.

Replied in a new thread here: https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...good-idea-and-how-much-should-they-be.290604/

 

[Starmill]

100%. You cannot punish the rule breakers by breaching the contract with everyone else. XC could have a number of identical tribunal claims to defend here, the cost of which would likely be much higher than simply paying the commission they’ve stolen.

Claims to the Tribunal are a dangerous game for current staff who don't want to leave. Sometimes they're settled on the condition that the member of staff leaves. Usually they indicate that the relationship has broken down to the point that it can't be recovered, which is the reason why so many of them which proceed are for wrongful or unfair dismissal. Now of course the staff may well end up leaving and winning the case and view the compensation as appropriate in that circumstance. However one is very very unlikely to go to the Tribunal for £50 a month commission, or even several times that. It's just not an effective way to get a resolution.

 

[m0ffy]

Claims to the Tribunal are a dangerous game for current staff who don't want to leave. Sometimes they're settled on the condition that the member of staff leaves. Usually they indicate that the relationship has broken down to the point that it can't be recovered, which is the reason why so many of them which proceed are for wrongful or unfair dismissal. Now of course the staff may well end up leaving and winning the case and view the compensation as appropriate in that circumstance. However one is very very unlikely to go to the Tribunal for £50 a month commission, or even several times that. It's just not an effective way to get a resolution.

I see your position, but an employer deliberately withholding such a trifling amount of contractually-owed pay shows how much the relationship has deteriorated. It is a clear breach of contract, and could be an unlawful deduction.

 

[styles]

Claims to the Tribunal are a dangerous game for current staff who don't want to leave. Sometimes they're settled on the condition that the member of staff leaves. Usually they indicate that the relationship has broken down to the point that it can't be recovered, which is the reason why so many of them which proceed are for wrongful or unfair dismissal. Now of course the staff may well end up leaving and winning the case and view the compensation as appropriate in that circumstance. However one is very very unlikely to go to the Tribunal for £50 a month commission, or even several times that. It's just not an effective way to get a resolution.

It can also make future employment more difficult. No employer will admit to it, but as employment tribunal conclusions are public, if somebody Google's a candidate's name they will easily find tribunals, and they're much less likely to employ people who might, ahem, 'rock the boat' as they see it.

 

[43066]

Some on here regularly claim management have a huge array of options & powers at their disposal so disputes should almost never occur but your post suggests they’ve often very little room for manoeuvre before ballots are being organised.

I don’t follow, and my post suggests nothing of the sort. Management can negotiate and agree things with unions. Where that falls down is where they then renege on those agreements, whether that’s because they’re made to do so by the the DfT, or because they choose to do so for ideological reasons.

Ballots are not taken lightly and there’s a lengthy failure to agree process before they’re even considered.

 

[74A]

Some TOCs have never paid anything for scans. GWR for example. Its really stupid to give something then take it away later.

 

[43066]

Is the person who scans my phone/ticket at the turnstile of my local football club ilikley to be payed per scan ?

Surely it’s obvious why this is a spurious comparison. Passengers passing through a turnstile have no option but to present a ticket, so there’s no need to incentivise the staff. Furthermore, if their employer had agreed to pay them per scan and didn’t, I’d fully support them taking action. You presumably think staff should just accept management reneging on their obligations.

As a taxpayer I’d much rather incentives were paid where appropriate.

 

[Starmill]

I see your position, but an employer deliberately withholding such a trifling amount of contractually-owed pay shows how much the relationship has deteriorated. It is a clear breach of contract, and could be an unlawful deduction.

If the employee believes their contract has been breached they are entitled to recourse to the Tribunal, yes. They may believe that threatening or commencing the claim would be enough to get the employer to back down, and they may be right. But that does not take away the risk of a phyrric victory, nor of a loss because the Tribunal doesn't accept that the contract means what the employee says it means.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 9 Aug 2025 ==

Some TOCs have never paid anything for scans. GWR for example. Its really stupid to give something then take it away later.

Haven't most of them never paid per scan?

 

[DarloRich]

No, you point to your members bottom line and simply pointing out that if members recieve a small payment per scan (I believe 2/3p per scan is the going rate?) then that gives them a strong incentive to get on doing revenue and helps cushion them against the lost comission caused by changes outside their control.

It SHOULD be a win/win situation for all. You pay our members a tiny bit to protect your income AND in doing so incentivise them to work harder, cover more ground and help more people ( and by being more visible make them more valuable to passengers and a less easy target for removal)

I think there is a shared efficiency/productivity angle to be made.

First hand experience as a passenger of Northern suggests to me that once guards were getting a small payment per scan they not only started scanning tickets reliably (before it would often just be a glance, including of smart cards which you have no idea if it has ticket on or not without scanning!) but they started doing revenue far far more frequently. Rare is the train in my neck of the woods that the guard doesn't make it around at least once.

agreed!

Is the person who scans my phone/ticket at the turnstile of my local football club ilikley to be payed per scan ?

perhaps not - but if he or she has been promised an extra payment per scan which is then removed without discussion/consultation he might have a right to be aggrieved. The causal labour employed by your local football club don't really have the power to do anything about it mind!

PS many clubs don't even have turnstile people now, just a scanner.

Some on here regularly claim management have a huge array of options & powers at their disposal so disputes should almost never occur but your post suggests they’ve often very little room for manoeuvre before ballots are being organised.

There are well defined consultation processes in place to make changes to terms and conditions. The problems come when they are not followed and unilateral decisions are made and implemented. Rightly, the unions get quite uppity when these processes are disregarded.

My view is that disputes should rarely occur precisely because there are perfectly adequate and agreed routes to prevent that from happening. As long as those are followed it then comes down to what the orange fella called the art of the deal!

 

[Clarence Yard]

The current problem is that even negotiating ANY change to pay and conditions at a DfT TOC has to be approved by the DfT and the resultant agreement also has to be approved by the DfT.

Which is why I am surprised that XC are taking this action. If they haven’t had DfT approval, they would seem to be acting outside the terms of their contract with the DfT, unless, of course, there was never any DfT agreement for this payment in the first place.

The union having a quiet word with the relevant Labour SPADS at the DfT should soon elicit the truth.