McNulty Report

[ANorthernGuard]

Well said 313

 

[Metroland]

£25k per year is lower middle class, it is the typical wage of a graduate in the first 10 years of employment, a store manager, the higher clerical grades, some engineers and the lower grades of teachers and nurses.

A large number of areas of the country, most jobs are around the 15k mark, the average household income in the UK is £32k, that's usually two wages combined.

 

[Zoe]

I recent that accusation that someone on £25,000 is middle class. I live in Islington and £25,000 wont get you much where i live and live in what is considered to be the poorest part of Islington. The flat i live in is just big enough to swing a small rat, but by no stretch of the imagination is it big enough to swing a cat.

This is due to the capitalist system though. The free market allows landlords to charge what they like and in an area like London there will always be people that will pay the high rents. You need somewhere to live, they can charge you what they like for it, they don't care if you don't have anywhere to live as they will just find someone else that will pay their high rent if you don't want to.

 

[CarterUSM]

£25k per year is lower middle class,

I love that authoritative labelling. 25k is 25k and will be worth more or less depending on your location. Using salary alone as a class indicator is pretty narrow minded.

 

[Greenback]

A quick look at Jobsite for my local area revelas the following vacancies today:

Catering Services - £13-17k
Admin Officer £16-17k
Volunteer Development Co-ordinator £21-24k
Organiser £20-22.5k
Branch Manager £18-22k
Waiting and Bar Staff £15-18k
Web Developer £30-40k
Site Supervisor £22-27k
Store Manager £22-30k + bonus
IT Officer £18-21k

Llanelli and South West Wales is not regarded as a high wage area. I can see little evidence in the pay on offer for these vacancies that most jobs are 15k. Yes, some start at 15k but they then progress to a higher amount, presumably on completion fo training and subject to good attendance and conduct.

 

[Metroland]

Well yes, class is a complex subject and your attitudes to life as as much an indicator as to your social class as how much you earn.

Interestingly I checked the latest on the subject on wikipedia:

The lower middle class in Britain consists of people in white collar jobs living in less prosperous suburbs. Prior to 1970s expansion in higher education, members of this class often did not have a university education. They are employed in white-collar but relatively unskilled service industry jobs such as retail sales, rail ticket agents, railway guards, airline stewardesses and ticket agents, travel agents, hotel clerks, shipping clerks, transportation dispatchers and low level civil service jobs in local and regional government. These people would speak in local accents, although relatively mild.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_class_system

I would say the vast majority of railwaymen are now middle class, certainly Drivers, Guards, Signallers. I would suggest usually only members of the Pway could be considered working class, and skilled working class at that.

However, I suspect ASLEF and the RMT will continue their crusade for the workers and brothers, even though many of them are on middle management salaries. Personally I'm looking forward to a change in attitude and professionalisation of the railway industry, it will bring pride back and more mobility if nothing else.

 

[Minilad]

Would somebody please tell me what class I am then, as a driver ?
Just so I know what accent to talk with in the mess room tomorrow
Thanks muchly !!

 

[Metroland]

The upper end of lower middle class.

 

[Minilad]

Well I consider myself working class to be honest

 

[ANorthernGuard]

Well yes, class is a complex subject and your attitudes to life as as much an indicator as to your social class as how much you earn.

Interestingly I checked the latest on the subject on wikipedia:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_class_system

I would say the vast majority of railwaymen are now middle class, certainly Drivers, Guards, Signallers. I would suggest usually only members of the Pway could be considered working class, and skilled working class at that.

However, I suspect ASLEF and the RMT will continue their crusade for the workers and brothers, even though many of them are on middle management salaries. Personally I'm looking forward to a change in attitude and professionalisation of the railway industry, it will bring pride back and more mobility if nothing else.

Pride will go when the jobs start going, how can people have pride in their work when they have people attacking them constantly and for your info Pway can actually earn alot more than Guards and Signallers depending on their grade and qualifications, most of the McNumpty report will not happen too costly too implement in some regions and other reasons as mentioned previously.

 

[Metroland]

Well the skilled end of the Pway can, but they would be engineers and firmly middle class and probably have some sort of civil engineering training.

If the railways do not cut costs then people will either be priced off them, or in the worst case scenario some line closures with corresponding job losses, your choice.

 

[Zoe]

If the railways do not cut costs then people will either be priced off them, or in the worst case scenario some line closures with corresponding job losses, your choice.

Or they could actually be run as a public service and not for profit.

 

[strange6]

Well I consider myself working class to be honest

Not on your wages you're not! Some people though like to live modestly, which I have a feeling you do!

 

[313103]

I actually do have pride in my job, however it becomes very hard to maintain when you have the threat of your job going, when you Management always down your throat, when you have the passengers on your case. At the end of the day no matter how good or even bad i do my job, it will not be me who decides whether i am a worthy employee, in fact i will probably find it more difficult due to my trade union activities, even though the Economic League 'officially' doesnt exist, i am sure there are groups out there looking out for subversives like me! In fact i am sure organisations like that do exist i have tried on 4 occasions to get a job on First Great Western (mostly so i could move out of London) i have only got to the first letter landing on my door step telling me i didnt fit the candidates profile (whatever one of them is).

Oh and by the way i consider my self to be working class, and i am in a traditional BLUE collar grade not white collar, in fact my company use to issue Grey Collar shirts, perhaps they have listened to wikipedia because they have canged them to white. If i was in any class other then working i wouldnt be working for a living.

 

[Minilad]

Not on your wages you're not! Some people though like to live modestly, which I have a feeling you do!

I think the point here is wages do not dictate class. Your surroundings, attitudes, upbringing and so forth have much more bearing on class than simply how much you earn.
I don't exactly live what I would think of as a middle class lifestyle. Except maybe that I like to go to the States every year and have a decent holiday.
But apart from that I would say I am very much working class

 

[Metroland]

Or they could actually be run as a public service and not for profit.

Well they could be, but you need to make the case why we should be subsiding something that is used by (generally) the better off. Government and councils have a legal obligation to spend money wisely. More to the point, the railways compete with spending on defence, education, policing, the civil service and so on, all of which are feeling the pinch.

I am a big supporter of more rail spending and running some services with subsidy for other reasons (social inclusion, congestion, pollution and so on). But you cannot continue to throw money at things, no questions asked. We'd have had a lot more rail re-openings (and jobs) if the industry was more cost effective.

It may be the railways shouldn't have been privatised the way they were, but what is done is now done, and now it's time to sort out the mess before the next control period spending.

 

[Greenback]

I would have said that the type of work that you do also impacts on the class you are or think you are. For instance, a job which includes an element of physical activity, getting dirty or working shifts, is more liekly to be thought of as working class.

In comparison, someone may be earning less money, but working 9 to 5 in an office and so be considered by themselves and their friends as middle class.

I think there is more to class than pay - although ultimately I prefer not to think in class terms at all, it's all a bit old fashioned to my mind.

 

[Zoe]

Well they could be, but you need to make the case why we should be subsiding something that is used by (generally) the better off.

But you have to ask the question of why it is used by the better off. If fares were not so expensive then more would be using it. I would also have thought that the better off would be more likely to drive as they can afford to.

 

[Greenback]

But you have to ask the question of why it is used by the better off. If fares were not so expensive then more would be using it. I would also have thought that the better off would be more likely to drive as they can afford to.

It is probably the case that most of the commuters arriving into London on a weekday morning could be classed as the better off. That is not the case in other areas where trains can be cheaper than the bus and are very useful for the less well off.

Sadly, the government only sees the South East commuters when it thinks of railways. These people of course, usually pay more than commuters in other areas anyway.

 

[Metroland]

But you have to ask the question of why it is used by the better off. If fares were not so expensive then more would be using it. I would also have thought that the better off would be more likely to drive as they can afford to.

I've already pointed it rail is a high volume medium distance transport, which lends itself well to serving cities and most of the better jobs are in the centre of town, hence why the profiles tend to be middle class. Also middle class people tend to commute out of town into the country, especially around London. Most rail travel is in London and the SE, followed by Intercity travel.

Out in the regions however, people from all income groups use the trains.

 

[313103]

Well they could be, but you need to make the case why we should be subsiding something that is used by (generally) the better off. Government and councils have a legal obligation to spend money wisely. More to the point, the railways compete with spending on defence, education, policing, the civil service and so on, all of which are feeling the pinch.

I am a big supporter of more rail spending and running some services with subsidy for other reasons (social inclusion, congestion, pollution and so on). But you cannot continue to throw money at things, no questions asked. We'd have had a lot more rail re-openings (and jobs) if the industry was more cost effective.

It may be the railways shouldn't have been privatised the way they were, but what is done is now done, and now it's time to sort out the mess before the next control period spending.

The only way you get the costs down and make things cost effective is 1. Reduce the amount of total staff employeed (makes good business sense). 2. Reduce the wages of the staff left in employment, with favourable terms and conditions towards the company. 3. Automate everything that you can in line with above, the more automation the less staff required. 4. Make it illegal to have trade unions like GCHQ was, that way the company doesnt even need to tell you in advance any changes that it wishes to make as part of the business plan.

Just some food for thought and it will be cheap as well.

 

[Greenback]

People of all income groups use trains in the South East, it's just that the majority are from the affluent end of society!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

The only way you get the costs down and make things cost effective is 1. Reduce the amount of total staff employeed (makes good business sense). 2. Reduce the wages of the staff left in employment, with favourable terms and conditions towards the company. 3. Automate everything that you can in line with above, the more automation the less staff required. 4. Make it illegal to have trade unions like GCHQ was, that way the company doesnt even need to tell you in advance any changes that it wishes to make as part of the business plan.

Just some food for thought and it will be cheap as well.

Hang on, isn't that the gist of the McNumpty report?

 

[Zoe]

People of all income groups use trains in the South East

It also doesn't cost a fortune to use them if you don't book in advance.

 

[Metroland]

The only way you get the costs down and make things cost effective is 1. Reduce the amount of total staff employeed (makes good business sense). 2. Reduce the wages of the staff left in employment, with favourable terms and conditions towards the company. 3. Automate everything that you can in line with above, the more automation the less staff required. 4. Make it illegal to have trade unions like GCHQ was, that way the company doesnt even need to tell you in advance any changes that it wishes to make as part of the business plan.

Just some food for thought and it will be cheap as well.

Or you could become more innovative and productive, which is what I favour. This requires doing things new ways, and yes some automation (such as getting rid of mechanical signalboxes) or requires and doing things a new way. I'd personally also have DOO as the default working method and employ people on the virtually all trains trains purely in a customer service role/revenue protection one and so on. They could be doing other things to generate money for the company, such as selling drinks, selling tickets, for example, or helping keep trains clear of rubbish en-route, or maybe helping people with bags.

 

[television]

I think the point here is wages do not dictate class. Your surroundings, attitudes, upbringing and so forth have much more bearing on class than simply how much you earn.
I don't exactly live what I would think of as a middle class lifestyle. Except maybe that I like to go to the States every year and have a decent holiday.
But apart from that I would say I am very much working class

Well said. If we use the 20k barrier as the middle class point, that would make all Arriva North West Bus Drivers middle class. I'd guess most of the workforce there would consider themselves 'Working Class'.

Its a bit black & white but I say if you work, you are working class. I don't think that earning 25k can give anyone the right to put their own head up their own back passage & declare themselves of a better class than somebody who earns £150 a week less.

 

[spacehopper]

I'd personally also have DOO as the default working method and employ people on the virtually all trains trains purely in a customer service role/revenue protection one and so on. They could be doing other things to generate money for the company, such as selling drinks, selling tickets, for example, or helping keep trains clear of rubbish en-route, or maybe helping people with bags.

Apart from catering we do all of the above!

Again where is the huge savings if your still going to have on-board staff?

 

[ukrob]

Apart from catering we do all of the above!

Again where is the huge savings if your still going to have on-board staff?

You wouldn't have to pay as much if the role was not safety critical.

Lets say the salary for this 'new' role is £3k less.

Multiply £3k by the number of displaced guards. Multiply it by ten years, for example. It adds up.

 

[Smudger105e]

You wouldn't have to pay as much if the role was not safety critical.

Lets say the salary for this 'new' role is £3k less.

Multiply £3k by the number of displaced guards. Multiply it by ten years, for example. It adds up.

So it's not about being inovative then, or eliminating restrictive working practices, it's about cutting wages of the staff. As long as we all understand that.

 

[Captain Chaos]

Apart from catering we do all of the above!

Again where is the huge savings if your still going to have on-board staff?

Make everyone an ATE and the saving is about £6k to £10k depending on location? How many guards is there? 6800?

At the least they would be saving £40,800,000 per year.

At the most they would be saving £68,000,000 per year.

This of course assumes that all guards are kept and re-graded with new contracts and terms of employment.

Although I am a guard and would like to see the grade stay (can't see it happening no matter how much noise is made) I would have thought that re-grading as RPO's/RPI's would be of more benefit? Yes the wage is higher than an ATE (and where I come from ATE's earn commission), but surely it would be more commercially sensible?

 

[BestWestern]

The travelling public do not know who is safety critical or not, if there is an incident anybody who is on-board staff would be expected by a trainload of passengers to know what they were doing. Sadly, that wouldn't be the case if we had Stewards-cum-ticket sellers, whose best response in an emergency would presumably be to offer everybody a cup of tea.

If the figures mentioned in earlier threads are somewhere close to accurate, we're looking at 8,000 Guards and 15,000 platform staff all going 'up the road' as a result of any Government being short-sighted and politically suicidal enough to see this through. A good number of these will have served the railways for 10, 15, maybe 20 years. So, who wants a guess at the redundancy payment costs then, folks?!! The repeated mentions of giving these people 'other jobs' are clearly nonsense as, if the railway is streamlining, where else exactly would over 20,000 people be employed?!

Add that to the cost of fitting all relevant stock (most of our commuter multiple unit fleet at present) with working DOO controls, add the cost of fitting banks of monitors and associated CCTV systems to each and every station called at (no space in the cab of a Sprinter or suchlike for on-board camera monitors), as well as retraining all Drivers, and of course renegotiating their contracts and paying them more for the new responsibilites of their job.

Then, factor in that the first noticeable effect of nationwide DOO will be revenue income dropping through the floor, since we all know in DOO land nobody buys a ticket! Of course, you could spend some more millions recruiting and training an army of RPI's, but they will have to issue Penalty Fares and report people for prosecution, meaning they don't focus on the 'easy' revenue stream of just selling tickets. PF's and prosecutions cost time and money to process, not always with any guarunteed outcome, and they require another army of backoffice staff to do all the paperwork. So let's spend some more money recruiting and training them as well!! Yes, you could offer these jobs to all those people who used to be Guards, but then you'd have to start opening admin offices here there and everywhere, 'cos we're not all going to be able to get to wherever our TOC's HQ is, are we?! Is that the 'savings' that I can hear being p*ssed straight down the drain??

Those who seem to have a sizeable chip on their shoulder over us pesky Guards having the cheek to have successfully applied for our jobs on the railway and earning a decent wage for doing so, will be waiting some time yet before that happy day when thousands of mostly hard working people are forced out of work. DOO can't, and won't, happen overnight. Sorry about that.