....If Northern employees don't like being on lower pay than other TOCs they can always move to other TOCs - I'm sure Southern would welcome them with open arms!
Perhaps Northern staff should start saying that when everyone else starts moaning about pay freezes?
It does beg the question, if franchises like Northern are such bad loss makers that have to be propped up by grants / subsidies, why on Earth do companies line up to bid for them let alone offer substantial investment?....
I believe most franchises can take 3% of ticket revenue as profit, even if they receive subsidy from Government.
...Northern said "it is a 4 year deal or nothing at all, we are not prepared to agree to anything less than a 3 to 4 year multi year deal"....
Bit of an odd comment really, considering their initial offer could have been just 2 years with the option of a third, but perhaps they thought they had a way to make sure it went to three years.
....If there are likely to be major changes to working practices, T&Cs etc I wouldn't want to commit to a four year deal without at least understanding what future practices would be like....
Getting accurate information out of management is harder than getting blood from a stone.
When Arriva took over, part of me thought they would offer a basic year or two year deal then get themselves settled ready to sort out the harmonisation and possible Sunday working in 2018.
Instead they've kept the Abellio deadwood and continued business as normal when it comes to industrial relations.
They've been exceptionally good at lowering the standard in quite a few areas.
Train Drivers currently the 26th out of 350 best paid profession, that's the same as Senior Emergency Services Manager, NHS Directors and Senior Managers, Specialist IT Managers, Manufacturing Directors and Senior Sales Managers....
With the possible exception of ex-TPE staff, Northern drivers are between eight and seventeen percent below that average wage and would better fit around 34 to 53 in that list.
....Guards are 57th same as Police Officers, Chartered Accountants, IT Professionals and Production Engineers....
The actual list says "Rail transport operatives", so I'm not sure exactly who that encompasses, but if I recall correctly the last Northern vacancy list I saw with a Guard on it, they are about £10k-£12k below that average (fully trained), putting them down at 114th to 167th in that table, along with the likes of "Prison service officers", "Probation officers" and "Social workers".
Rail construction workers are 90th around the same as Journalists and Secondary School teachers, Aircraft Maintenance, Telecoms Engineers, Vets and Chartered Architects....
Northern don't have any of them.
.... Non guard rail staff like travel assistants are 97th....
I'd be delighted to receive that sort of wage for my job, alas my basic pay from Northern (for a booking office role with additional platform duties at certain locations) is more than £10k lower than that, around about 238 along with "Postal workers, mail sorters, messengers and couriers", "Officers of non-governmental organisations" and "Credit controllers".
For Train Presentation Operatives you can take off another £5k, around about 290 in that list with "Farm Workers" and "Gardeners and landscape gardeners".
The list is at least a year old.
Well pay negotiations often drag on for many months, so a strike this early seems, shall we put it, less than reasonable?
Pay negotiations have been going on for months, for a pay deal that is already going to be backdated nine months. A pay negotiation where the latest offer is "that or nothing" and is largely no move on the initial offer, but is for a longer period. Where exactly do you expect them to go with more talks?
