Saturdays and Sundays should be inside the working week for drivers at all TOCs (not just some as at present)

[John R]

Are there drivers who have graduated recently enough to have large loans, rose to a level where they have a salary reaching the allowance drop off, and haven’t paid off their loans? It seems that’s trying too hard to find a problem, where the problem is that they are taxed on income over one hundred thousand pounds a year like anyone else. The majority in the middle don’t have an experience like that. Maybe they should arrange schedules around the new and average drivers who want to work overtime on Sundays and therefore rest on Saturday and Monday. Don’t arrange it on seniority, if that is the case anymore.

The earliest graduates on the egregious Plan 2 9% repayment loans graduated 11 years ago.

Plan 1 loans also repay at 9% and started in 1998, but are less of a problem as the amounts were lower and the debt is extinguished after 25 years.

 

[35B]

Are there drivers who have graduated recently enough to have large loans, rose to a level where they have a salary reaching the allowance drop off, and haven’t paid off their loans? It seems that’s trying too hard to find a problem, where the problem is that they are taxed on income over one hundred thousand pounds a year like anyone else. The majority in the middle don’t have an experience like that. Maybe they should arrange schedules around the new and average drivers who want to work overtime on Sundays and therefore rest on Saturday and Monday. Don’t arrange it on seniority, if that is the case anymore.

And when they want to spend time with their families? Or there's a big event on?

The trouble with averages is that they mask the exceptions, and it's the exceptions where the service breaks down.

The tax issue is a side issue, but helps with understanding the behaviour - both here, and more widely. It shows what that overtime is really worth, and feeds into what the employee values their time at. That 9% on a student loan just erodes the value of the overtime - meaning that the Income Tax on £100 of overtime is 49% rather than 40%. If I might do something for £100, I might well not do it for £50.

While the £100k tax trap is an edge case, the Child Benefit taper will be more relevant to drivers' pay packets - and does show up as a direct cost of earning more.

The answer to this is for the railway to contract staff on the same basis that they sell their services. And the reason it's difficult is that it requires some of those staff to give up rights, while it will also cost the railway more to employ them.

 

[Krokodil]

That 9% on a student loan just erodes the value of the overtime - meaning that the Income Tax on £100 of overtime is 49% rather than 40%

Pushing up to 51% with NI. Might only be an extra 2%, but it’s a big psychological threshold. That's before looking at child benefit clawbacks and other factors that cause the marginal rate to rocket.

 

[35B]

Pushing up to 51% with NI. Might only be an extra 2%, but it’s a big psychological threshold. That's before looking at child benefit clawbacks and other factors that cause the marginal rate to rocket.

Quite

 

[Bald Rick]

While the £100k tax trap is an edge case

It’s not really an edge case any more. It’s a common issue at several train operators.

 

[whoosh]

For Drivers, all TOCs have Saturday as a normal day.


The following...:

London North Eastern Railway
Trans Pennine Express
The Eastern part of Northern
Transport for Wales
South Eastern
South Western Railway
East Midlands Railway
London Underground
London Overground
Elizabeth Line
Tyne & Wear Metro


...all have Sundays in the working week for Drivers. These form vast swathes of the railway.

From next year, Greater Anglia will have too.

An offer was made to the DFT exactly one year ago, where GWR drivers (both high speed and former West and LTV) would have Sundays moved into the working week. It was agreed by management and Aslef. Unfortunately (to my knowledge), one year later and DFT are still refusing to authorise it.
So to those on here thinking it's the unions and drivers being obstructive, you are quite wrong, it's the DFT who for some reason don't want to play ball.

This is interesting for the reason that the DfT were the driving force behind East Midlands Trains (as it was then) placing driver's Sundays in the working week.

 

[Starmill]

It’s not really an edge case any more. It’s a common issue at several train operators.

It's a cliff edge which is capturing people across the economy yes absolutely.

 

[irish_rail]

For Drivers, all TOCs have Saturday as a normal day.


The following...:

London North Eastern Railway
Trans Pennine Express
The Eastern part of Northern
Transport for Wales
South Eastern
South Western Railway
East Midlands Railway
London Underground
London Overground
Elizabeth Line
Tyne & Wear Metro


...all have Sundays in the working week for Drivers. These form vast swathes of the railway.

From next year, Greater Anglia will have too.



This is interesting for the reason that the DfT were the driving force behind East Midlands Trains (as it was then) placing driver's Sundays in the working week.

So, the following do NOT have Sunday in the working week.

Avanti WEST Coast
Great WESTERN
WEST Midlands Railway
North WESTERN part of Northern

I'm noticing a common theme here. Less a north south divide, but very much an east west one.

 

[John R]

I seem to recall that GWR drivers taken on after a certain date do have Sundays in their working week. Is that correct?

 

[irish_rail]

I seem to recall that GWR drivers taken on after a certain date do have Sundays in their working week. Is that correct?

No. No one at GWR has Sunday in the working week. The newer drivers have a commitment to have to work them (ie enforced overtime), however in practice it isn't remotely enforceable and to my knowledge no one has ever been disciplined for not coming to work on a sunday.

 

[Starmill]

So, the following do NOT have Sunday in the working week.

Avanti WEST Coast
Great WESTERN
WEST Midlands Railway
North WESTERN part of Northern

I'm noticing a common theme here. Less a north south divide, but very much an east west one.

Several of those are circumstances where booked Sundays are committed though. Which is common in lots of places. Of course the driver being committed but not the guard is just as bad.

 

[martin2345uk]

For Drivers, all TOCs have Saturday as a normal day.


The following...:

London North Eastern Railway
Trans Pennine Express
The Eastern part of Northern
Transport for Wales
South Eastern
South Western Railway
East Midlands Railway
London Underground
London Overground
Elizabeth Line
Tyne & Wear Metro


...all have Sundays in the working week for Drivers.

...also Eurostar (we also have Christmas Day and Boxing Day )

 

[whoosh]

So, the following do NOT have Sunday in the working week.

Avanti WEST Coast
Great WESTERN
WEST Midlands Railway
North WESTERN part of Northern

I'm noticing a common theme here. Less a north south divide, but very much an east west one.

But also with Sundays NOT in the working week:
Great Northern (which is in the south!) Thameslink, and Southern - which is in the MIDDLE of South Eastern and South Western(!)

...also Eurostar (we also have Christmas Day and Boxing Day )

Eurostar - of course!
I knew I'd missed one!

Well actually, I'd only included the publically controlled or franchised operators. But all the Open Access Operators have Sundays in the working week too.

Hull Trains
Lumo
Grand Central

And all the Freight Operating Companies (FOCs).

The only one that doesn't, possibly, is Colas Infrastructure who do the Network Rail test trains etc. If it's still the same as a few years ago (they were DB Infrastructure, and Serco before that) their working days were Monday to Friday with rest days on Saturdays and Sundays. This may have changed though and they are separate to the rest of Colas.

 

[irish_rail]

Several of those are circumstances where booked Sundays are committed though. Which is common in lots of places. Of course the driver being committed but not the guard is just as bad.

Yes and committed Sundays are awful from the staff's point of view. When we hear that Anglia are getting cushy deals for Sundays within the working week, it inevitably makes those in the West slightly envious.

 

[Bald Rick]

For Drivers, all TOCs have Saturday as a normal day.

That depends on your definition of normal.

 

[bramling]

That depends on your definition of normal.

Is there any operator where weekend shifts are entirely on a par with everything else? Even on LU where weekends are fully “inside” there are a number of differences, in particular the way duties are constructed.

I’ve always been of the view that the underlying problem isn’t how the railway organises weekend shifts, but the change in the demand for weekend travel over the last 15-25 years, and also probably this also is exacerbated by people generally having less desire to work weekends for similar reasons.

I suspect that whatever happens, there will always be some level of difficulty resourcing weekend duties, especially during times like school holidays, summer, major sports events, etc.

Probably a reasonable bet that this discussion could still be being had 30 years from now.

 

[BrianW]

That depends on your definition of normal.

IIUC, no-one has yet mentioned nationalisation or GBR. I imagine that come the day, government will want (expect?) national conditions of service. Again IIUC, the current PM is an adherent to the Roman Catholic faith. Does he work on Sundays? The previous incumbent 'vowed' to keep Saturdays free in recognition of his wife's Jewish faith, and wanting to have family time with the kids, again IIRC. Didn't John Major, on bringing in Sunday Trading, allow for 'religious observance' without penalty? What is 'normal' indeed?

 

[bramling]

IIUC, no-one has yet mentioned nationalisation or GBR. I imagine that come the day, government will want (expect?) national conditions of service. Again IIUC, the current PM is an adherent to the Roman Catholic faith. Does he work on Sundays? The previous incumbent 'vowed' to keep Saturdays free in recognition of his wife's Jewish faith, and wanting to have family time with the kids, again IIRC. Didn't John Major, on bringing in Sunday Trading, allow for 'religious observance' without penalty? What is 'normal' indeed?

I’d say the bigger issue as regards staff is that weekends allow days with offspring, and the vast majority of event type activities tend to occur on weekend days, especially Saturdays. Not just stuff like sports fixtures, but hobby type activities with others.

It’s all very well saying that people take the job on knowing this is the case, and remunerated accordingly, but that’s no good if you want to do X activity and it only takes place on a Saturday morning.

There is a breed of people who like days off in the week, but not enough of them, and even then there may be occasions when they want or need to do stuff at weekends.

You can also add that weekend working can be a pain at times as well. More trouble from passengers for various reasons, for starters.

 

[whoosh]

That depends on your definition of normal.

Saturdays are part of the working week at all TOCs.

Saturdays are of course more likely to reach the saturation of annual leave quotas due to the items discussed by bramling above. Weekdays likely only use all annual leave quotas during school holidays, with Christmas being the most notable.

Saturday afternoons with party-goers and football fans carry a disincentive for overtime, as well as being in the middle of a weekend off with family. An early Saturday duty, or a Sunday (early or late) are much less unpopular for overtime.

At my TOC with Sundays outside the working week, the Sunday rate is much higher than Rest Day Work rate, so get covered easily. Also, there are quite a number of Sundays to be worked in the roster and an early Sunday sometimes follows a Saturday rest day - which means rest day work can't be done on a PM shift on that Saturday.

 

[Bald Rick]

Saturdays are part of the working week at all TOCs.

Yes they are.

However, that doesn’t mean that at all TOCs Saturdays are considered exactly the same as a Tuesday, for example, in the ability of the TOC to roster drivers to work. Which in my opinion does not make it ‘normal’.

 

[317 forever]

For Drivers, all TOCs have Saturday as a normal day.


The following...:

London North Eastern Railway
Trans Pennine Express
The Eastern part of Northern
Transport for Wales
South Eastern
South Western Railway
East Midlands Railway
London Underground
London Overground
Elizabeth Line
Tyne & Wear Metro


...all have Sundays in the working week for Drivers. These form vast swathes of the railway.

From next year, Greater Anglia will have too.



This is interesting for the reason that the DfT were the driving force behind East Midlands Trains (as it was then) placing driver's Sundays in the working week.

I'm due to use Chiltern and c2c on a Sunday in a few weeks from now. I may have to brace myself for cancellations.

 

[rmHawk765]

The following...:

London North Eastern Railway
Trans Pennine Express
The Eastern part of Northern
Transport for Wales
South Eastern
South Western Railway
East Midlands Railway
London Underground
London Overground
Elizabeth Line
Tyne & Wear Metro


...all have Sundays in the working week for Drivers. These form vast swathes of the railway.

So, the following do NOT have Sunday in the working week.

Avanti WEST Coast
Great WESTERN
WEST Midlands Railway
North WESTERN part of Northern

I'm noticing a common theme here. Less a north south divide, but very much an east west one.

Govia sorry Greater Thameslink Railway is a big one not on there, and unsurprisingly so. GTR doesn't have enough drivers on weekdays, let alone Sundays. GTR Sunday services are often one of two things: cancelled or never existent because of degraded timetables (despite the massive rise in Sunday travel post-COVID!).

 

[whoosh]

I'm due to use Chiltern and c2c on a Sunday in a few weeks from now. I may have to brace myself for cancellations.

C2C!!! I should've put that on the list. They have Sundays in the working week.

 

[geoffk]

I notice that this thread is specifically about drivers, but the same situation applies to guards or conductors doesn't it, but not always at the same train companies.