When I say the only way to change it. I mean the only way to end the strikes is to change the franchise agreement or as you rightly put it RMT lose and DOO gets implemented, which ever comes sooner. RMT have already lost. They cannot stop DOO. The solutions that could bring about that change either A) every day on strike or B) wait till they have Aslef support are expensive or unlikely. So they will lose. They are just too arrogant to admit defeat which is why we are in this deadlock.
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Arriva Rail North DOO
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northwichcat
Veteran Member
If the RMT letter is in direct response to a letter/email from the Northern MD why hasn't that one been made public?
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Apparently it's a nationwide scheme agreed by all TOCs to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of WWI and was agreed upon before the RMT announced a strike the day before Remembrance Day. If Northern offer free travel on a different date in lieu because of the strikes it then wouldn't tie in with the days armed forces members get free travel on other TOCs. The RMT were trying to make out the DOO dispute is war - well unless they call off this Saturday's strike the military might have something to say on the dispute!
I think the letter was emailed to Northern employees/available on internal website. I don't see why it would be made public if an internal document.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Someone's posted the RMT's response to that on here. Surely posting the RMT's response on here is pointless unless the letter from Northern is also pointless - I'm sure the RMT members have seen both already but for other forum users it's misleading to only publish one side of an argument.
Guarantees for the current post holders, be they on pay, terms or continued employment were never the issue and that was true going right back to Southern OBS.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Didn't Southern threaten to make the guard role redundant in response to the RMT refusing to negotiate a change to the guard's role?
And then what ?
I can't understand why, regardless of whether it is necessary or desirable to have guards, people on here do not get why guards would strike ovpvher a change from trains having to have guards, to trains not having to have guards. What's in it for them ?
So what's in it for them ?
I am increasingly sceptical about the sort of 'progress' which has wiped out many of this country's secure and well-paid jobs. And I'm in increasing despair about the number of people who seem to think this is a good thing. The words 'turkeys' and 'Christmas' spring to mind
LOL The Irony
Established Member
I have to agree. They need all the brownie points they can get hold of right now and this isn't going to help them.
It would be interesting to know why they didn't withdraw the strike on Northern like they did on SWR for that reason.
They really don't know how to play the PR game. It is the same with the Christmas action - Obviously you get maximum disruption from mid-November to December but going for days when you know people are going to mainly be travelling home for Christmas / New Year is just horrible.
northwichcat
Veteran Member
Striking is supposed to be a last resort not something you do if there's a risk your role might stop being a 20th century role on rolling stock that belongs on the scrap heap.
The profession of flight engineers and navigators no longer exists in the civil aviation world. The last of Mohicans either became pilots or left the profession. Fast forward 30 years and flights are much more affordable than ever and everyone can fly.
Why should railways be different? Those wishing to remain in the business can either train to be train drivers or remain in the role of OBS. And again, I support the second member of staff on trains as long as he/she is not reading the newspaper in the back cab.
It’s about being grown up and realistic enough to appreciate rules permitting DOO came to the U.K.in 1968 or 1982 depending on whether we’re talking metro or mainline, so it was inevitable from then on change would eventually come to the guards grade ultimately spreading to almost everywhere, anyone that claims otherwise either isn’t being true to themselves or is ignoring the facts
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Robertj21a
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I guess where Arriva went wrong was in guaranteeing no redundancies.
Any normal negotiation concerning the long term successful future of a company, and associated need for a flexible workforce, would not have made any such guarantee up front. It would have been a natural part of negotiations over re-structuring, revised contracts, pay etc.
Having given away a strong bargaining tool to a union that still thinks in terms of happily dozing through the 1980s, Arriva has ended up with the RMT assuming that they can milk the employer for ever more. Strikes, that should be the final sanction when all else has failed, were brought in very early on purely as a scaremongering tactic to retain their own membership numbers. As we all know, this dispute has little to do with FatCats, foreign ownership, Tories - or even the safety of passengers. It's all to do with a dinosaur union determined to hang on to as many members as possible.
What Arriva should have done is to make no promises of job security whatsoever past, say, 6-12 months ahead. Then, the RMT might have come to the negotiating table with a bit more common sense than they've exhibited ever since this dispute started.
evoluzione
Member
As far as I’m aware.
The RMT letter is out in the public domain, its on their website for all to see.
Northerns is not, reproducing it on here would see any member of staff in breach of Northerns Social Media policy.
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Can you explain where in any of what you propose would there have been any incentive for the guards to do anything other than strike in order to protect their positions ?
Btw Mr Flexibility what do you do for a living ?
But what's in it for them ? Why is speeding up the demise of your own job considered such a desirable goal for today's British worker ?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Eh? It's more that these days there is a recognition in most industries that technological advances are making jobs change very quickly. Redundancies are to be avoided, but I don't see any issue with just not recruiting, or moving people into slightly different roles like OBS. Indeed, there is a lot to be said for the OBS role, it does very much seem like what started out as a fob-off that everyone thought would disappear has actually proven rather successful. Indeed, aren't GTR putting OBS on Southern-branded services that were previously "fully" DOO?
Has "the job for life" gone? Yes, probably. But that isn't disastrous provided *a* job is available (of a suitable level). Northern will not be making people redundant any time soon.
If you want to address employment issues, dead-end minimum wage jobs with no prospects are far more worthy of dealing with than whether some guards have to become OBS.
As it happens, I'm not convinced of the need to retain guards, if and when other means arrive of enabling safe despatch. But you're missing my point. What incentive is there for the guards to agree to their own long-term extinction ?
Ask anyone who voted for Brexit.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
In most industries they don't have to, and nor should they. Jobs are created because employers need work doing, not for the sake of it. If the work no longer needs doing, then the job isn't needed any more. If you want a safety net (and I think that is very important) the State is the place for that to be provided, not the railway any more than Barclays Bank.
But that isn't even the case here. Nobody would be made redundant under the plans.
And that is why I think the RMT are bang out of order, and if they don't wind their necks in they should be at the receiving end of legislation requiring them to protect only the current employment (wage levels and T&C, not specific role) of current members in their current role not some hypothetical future people who haven't even become guards yet.
What incentive have the guards got to agree to their own extinction ?
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Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The point is that nobody needs to agree to anything. If the employer decides the role is no longer needed, in any other industry that's that. There is absolutely no reason for the railway to be any different. Jobs exist so that a specific required piece of work gets done.
Some Northern guards will no longer need to be guards. They can be OBS instead. They wouldn't even have to apply to become OBS like many people in other industries do.
I don't see why that, provided they keep their pay levels, pensions etc, is any kind of an issue whatsoever.
LOL The Irony
Established Member
Because nearly everyone knows the SWR dispute started because the guard offices were removed to allow more seats where as there's a massive grey area with Northern.
This does presuppose... a lot.
If the same ratio of staff to services as now were kept, and the same level of pay, benefits and so on (as you are advocating) then although we could see benefits for onboard customer service, revenue and probably reduced dwell times too, I am not sure this would actually meet the franchise objectives. This would not reduce costs (and therefore subsidy) at all, which I think was probably the key driver behind the Franchise Agreement. There is no evidence that what you're talking about is on the table, or ever was.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Not quite. There may be a reduction in staff, but provided that is done by natural attrition (i.e. freezing recruitment and just waiting for people to retire, choose a different role e.g. driver or leave the TOC entirely) that is not the Union's business anyway.
I think there is near enough no evidence that any current Northern guard would (a) be made redundant, or (b) suffer an erosion of pay or conditions other than the change in the role itself if they became OBS. There's too much old rolling stock there for that. Crikey, Merseyrail didn't even look like they were going to make anyone redundant, and they are fully replacing their fleet.
Unions protecting positions for people who are not even in them yet are going way beyond what is reasonable.
A reduction in staff wouldn't be possible without an acceptence that a proportion of trains will be running, every day, with no second person onboard. The number of train daily services will increase so the same or fewer staff would sacrifice that. Even if it is only 5% or less that would be a change that the Union won't tolerate. I suspect that there is a need for it to be greater than that for any efficiency savings that are a part of the FA cost proflie, if you say they all have to be paid the same?
I will answer from my perspective, somebody who works in the medical records department of an NHS hospital.
About 6 or so years ago, the hospital was still only dealing with paper medical records. Over two million from slivers to cardboard boxes in a library held in a cold, damp basement. The new computer based system began to replace paper with on-line notes. Not all the reaction was positive, but one look at patient notes turned into papier mache by leaks should have turned most people away from the old way to the future model eventually.
We are now six years on from the initial period of introducing the new system. Staff who used to work solely with paper notes in the library have either taken on new jobs elsewhere (internally) or left to new employment externally. The health records staff who used to spend hours and hours and hours looking for paper notes for next-day clinics can now do their job in a day by using the computer system. Again, many are the same people who have just been moved to a new role, while others have retired or what-have-you.
With this very specific example of the NHS, I see so many parallels with the RMT and DOO trains: the new system has been introduced regardless of protests or concerns. The number of individuals doing the job has gone down, but so many of those are retirees or people choosing to go part-time. Nothing has been forced upon us to work more for less, indeed the most recent NHS pay deal has meant a lot of us are earning more than we ever have done. The main result has been modernisation: no more hauling cardboard boxes of notes upto Ward 17 for one night's stay: the relevant notes have been transferred to computer.
DOO is going to be introduced, just as paperless clinics have been introduced at our hospital, and so many other hospitals like it. What has happened with us, should have happened with Northern and the RMT. Not outright protest and disagreement, but working towards making the new system work for everybody.
DOO already exists on the British network, and there are many examples where paperless clinics and DOO trains are working for the benefit of the end users without the sky falling in.
Guards are not being forced to lose their job or get a bum deal. They're being asked to work towards the introduction of a modernised way of carrying out their existing role, and/or moving from outdated practices. We are all having to make that transition in our daily lives.
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