Railway Industrial Disputes Mk2

[Nicholas Lewis]

I guess if the pay is good enough to be able to take the hit time after time, then it can be kept up indefinitely in theory, but I can't see how the withdrawal of labour is going to achieve anything.

well it has elicited an improved offer from NR as to whether it will continue to do so is debatable and certainly there will come a point where the staff will never get back the money they are losing

 

[Carlisle]

I don’t think pay is at all good enough to do that for many RMT members, train cleaners, gate line staff etc. Withdrawal of their labour is the major weapon in their repertoire. Shapps is about to try to take that ability from them.

Actually your completely wrong, history demonstrates most of those categories of staff especially outsourced ones have long realised union leverage that’s culminated in drivers etc earning a fortune wont ever likely work in a similar manner for them so even if strikes were banned altogether, a fair & independent dispute resolution system would likely improve on what currently exists for them .

 

[Russel]

Getting a bit lost now when trying to keep up with who is striking when over the next month or so...

I was planning to do a couple of long distance trips with my son over the school holidays by train, but it's looking more like the money I would have spent on tickets is now going to go to Esso.

I've been a long time enthusiast, I've always tried to defend and promote the railways but this is becoming harder and harder given the industry seem to have hit the self destruct button.

 

[ComUtoR]

Quite. As I referred to earlier in this thread, some of the anti-customer posts on many driver Twitter accounts have been quite hostile.

Hostility is coming from both sides. Especially when you have people openly take delight in anti-union political rhetoric.

 

[TUC]

Well, life went on as normal yesterday, as on other strike days. I hope the unions are getting the message.

 

[yorksrob]

Well on the day following the last RMT strike, the first train that ran into work was the 8:00. Today for some reason, the first train is the 8:30.

I wonder what time the first train will be after the next one.

 

[trainophile]

Going to be fun today, the first Hereford to Birmingham train is the 1039, it's usually the fifth. Given the start of the Games I'm not looking forward to it one bit. Even getting on at the start might be dodgy.

 

[Bald Rick]

Going to be fun today, the first Hereford to Birmingham train is the 1039, it's usually the fifth. Given the start of the Games I'm not looking forward to it one bit. Even getting on at the start might be dodgy.

that’s rather better than the first train on that line after the first of the last strikes, which was 5 days away.

 

[Furryanimal]

The Saturday industrial action is threatening to completely derail my rugby season and concerts.
I can’t book my rugby trip to North Wales for September 10th in case industrial action is announced for that day.
i am due to see a concert on September 17th that I booked three years ago that will require an expensive hotel room or taxi home if there is action that day.
And I am basically reluctant to book any Autumn concerts( I usually see several) as I have no idea if I will be able to get home from them.
My concerts are usually in Cardiff and before Covid I could get within five miles of home by bus after a concert.
Now the bus finishes mid-evening with little likelihood of that changing.
So it is wait and see and hope I can book stuff within two weeks of the concert dates if there are no strikes due.
It is all very frustrating.
At least I will have the option of the supporters bus for away games in South Wales but I await to see if GWR will be able to run any trains on August 13th when I’m due in Bristol.
Otherwise it is three buses each way and 80 minutes in Chepstow and 45 minutes in Newport on the way back.
Perhaps I’ll check out National Express.

 

[yorksrob]

that’s rather better than the first train on that line after the first of the last strikes, which was 5 days away.

At least someone's line is "improving".

 

[Killingworth]

Well on the day following the last RMT strike, the first train that ran into work was the 8:00. Today for some reason, the first train is the 8:30.

I wonder what time the first train will be after the next one.

You're lucky. First train into Sheffield for me would be 9.58 as the first 5 trains are missing. But the service is normally so unreliable that users are quite used to making other arrangements.

 

[nedchester]

I don’t think pay is at all good enough to do that for many RMT members, train cleaners, gate line staff etc. Withdrawal of their labour is the major weapon in their repertoire. Shapps is about to try to take that ability from them.

Come off it. I can’t believe for one second you think that’s a good thing?

Shapps and the Tories as expected want a fight with the Rail Unions and are talking tough to appeal to their core voters (the 160,000 blue rinse brigade voting for the two wastes of space vying for the top job).

Meanwhile the unions are doing a very good job at not only making their point but rightly widening the issue to support other sectors as to them also getting a raw deal.

With an anticipated 70% rises in energy prices in the autumn this is all going to get worse not better whatever the Government try and legislate for as more sectors start to join the industrial action.

 

[philosopher]

Getting a bit lost now when trying to keep up with who is striking when over the next month or so...

I was planning to do a couple of long distance trips with my son over the school holidays by train, but it's looking more like the money I would have spent on tickets is now going to go to Esso.

I've been a long time enthusiast, I've always tried to defend and promote the railways but this is becoming harder and harder given the industry seem to have hit the self destruct button.

I agree, I have got a couple of day trips planned over the next few weeks and these strikes are making increasing difficult to find a time to undertake them. I was hoping to do one of them on the 13th August, but the train drivers strike on that date means that one is now out the window. Striking on two consecutive Saturdays in particular makes it hard to work around.

Since I do not drive, I may have to bin them entirely or put them off to next year.

 

[Ivor]

The Saturday industrial action is threatening to completely derail my rugby season and concerts.
I can’t book my rugby trip to North Wales for September 10th in case industrial action is announced for that day.
i am due to see a concert on September 17th that I booked three years ago that will require an expensive hotel room or taxi home if there is action that day.
And I am basically reluctant to book any Autumn concerts( I usually see several) as I have no idea if I will be able to get home from them.
My concerts are usually in Cardiff and before Covid I could get within five miles of home by bus after a concert.
Now the bus finishes mid-evening with little likelihood of that changing.It is all very frustrating.

Yep I’m similar, concerts in London pushed back a couple of years re Covid are now Sept & Oct plus I’m a season ticket holder at a London football club.

Concert dates: I pre booked non refundable hotels & rail tickets as would miss last trains home & even a couple of social events in London I’ve cancelled as on strike days.

I know the rail tickets I can get refunds.

I’m a zero hours railway agency worker & as stated on the first thread had shifts cancelled on previous strike days as did a number of colleagues & I am sure that will be the same across agency staff on strike days, I have had a few again cancelled this week, losing income once more.

After 5 years on the railway now frantically looking for other work as can’t continue like this although I have stated previously on the first thread my support for TOC staff not having their T&Cs eroded but alongside this strike action there are casualties.

 

[yorkie]

The 0819 from York is very lightly loaded compared to what I would expect. I only just missed out on a table to myself and several people do have tables to themselves. There are bays of two going spare. It's the first TPE and there hasn't been any other train towards Leeds for over an hour

Clearly a lot of people who previously caught are working from home today. Leisure passengers are not likely to put up with the high prices and so will be travelling later or by road.

Yep I’m similar, concerts in London pushed back a couple of years re Covid are now Sept & Oct plus I’m a season ticket holder at a London football club.

Concert dates: I pre booked non refundable hotels & rail tickets as would miss last trains home & even a couple of social events in London I’ve cancelled as on strike days.

I know the rail tickets I can get refunds.

I’m a zero hours railway agency worker & as stated on the first thread had shifts cancelled on previous strike days as did a number of colleagues & I am sure that will be the same across agency staff on strike days, I have had a few again cancelled this week, losing income once more.

After 5 years on the railway now frantically looking for other work as can’t continue like this although I have stated previously on the first thread my support for TOCs not having their T&Cs eroded but alongside this strike action there are casualties.

Sorry to hear that. Sadly the Unions don't care about people like you. They know their actions have these consequences so can't plead ignorance.

The Saturday industrial action is threatening to completely derail my rugby season and concerts.
I can’t book my rugby trip to North Wales for September 10th in case industrial action is announced for that day.
i am due to see a concert on September 17th that I booked three years ago that will require an expensive hotel room or taxi home if there is action that day.
And I am basically reluctant to book any Autumn concerts( I usually see several) as I have no idea if I will be able to get home from them.
My concerts are usually in Cardiff and before Covid I could get within five miles of home by bus after a concert.
Now the bus finishes mid-evening with little likelihood of that changing.
So it is wait and see and hope I can book stuff within two weeks of the concert dates if there are no strikes due.
It is all very frustrating.
At least I will have the option of the supporters bus for away games in South Wales but I await to see if GWR will be able to run any trains on August 13th when I’m due in Bristol.
Otherwise it is three buses each way and 80 minutes in Chepstow and 45 minutes in Newport on the way back.
Perhaps I’ll check out National Express.

I'm booking overnight accommodation for many trips where getting back may be an issue; I already liked to do that in order to travel at more civilised times and am just doing that a bit more than usual.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 28 Jul 2022 ==

I don’t think pay is at all good enough to do that for many RMT members, train cleaners, gate line staff etc...

ASLEF strike action to last considerably longer than RMT strike action do you think?

Come off it. I can’t believe for one second you think that’s a good thing?

The situation is not a good thing but actions have consequences; the actions look like actions designed to persuade customers to use alternative transport and if that isn't the intention, it's clearly an expected outcome.

 

[dk1]

First Norwich - Liverpool Street is F&S from Ipswich.

 

[Shrop]

I tend to agree that those who stand for elected office do have a higher propensity for idiocy.

of course, and keeping on topic, this doesn’t just apply to politicians.

Sad but true, whichever way you look at this. But the really worrying thing is that the electorate keeps falling for the idiocy and keeps electing them into office.

This is quite a conundrum about modern society, and perhaps if we could solve this conundrum we might achieve an improvement in society.

But how? Maybe we could start by forcing all those who make decisions about rail services, to be dependent upon those services for their livelihood, in order to give them something better than their present, often very unrealistic perspective?

 

[yorkie]

First Norwich - Liverpool Street is F&S from Ipswich.

Given there would normally be 7 trains from Ipswich before this one, and today that is the first one, I'd be rather concerned if it wasn't!

But how? Maybe we could start by forcing all those who make decisions about rail services, to be dependent upon those services for their livelihood...

Do you include the Unions in that? or do you have an exemption for them?

 

[Ivor]

Sorry to hear that. Sadly the Unions don't care about people like you.

Nope….but in life we have to accept I suppose certain scenarios.

 

[yorksrob]

Well on the day following the last RMT strike, the first train that ran into work was the 8:00. Today for some reason, the first train is the 8:30.

I wonder what time the first train will be after the next one.

And predictably the 8:30 is full and standing and leaving passengers behind.

Proper screw-up from Northern.

 

[dk1]

Given there would normally be 7 trains from Ipswich before this one, and today that is the first one, I'd be rather concerned if it wasn't!

Good ol’745s are great passenger absorbers. Personally idve waited for the following 07:26. That will be far more civilised.

 

[yorkie]

Nope….but in life we have to accept I suppose certain scenarios.

Sadly true. I certainly wish you the best of luck and you can always return to the rail industry at a later date when the situation is better.

Good ol’745s are great passenger absorbers. Personally idve waited for the following 07:26. That will be far more civilised.

I would too. Conversely, I'm traveling on an earlier train than I could have done today as the 'peak' time trains are lightly loaded compared to 'off peak', at least on the route I'm taking.

 

[Andrew1395]

Actually your completely wrong, history demonstrates most of those categories of staff especially outsourced ones have long realised union leverage that’s culminated in drivers etc earning a fortune wont ever likely work in a similar manner for them so even if strikes were banned altogether, a fair & independent dispute resolution system would likely improve on what currently exists for them .

Which is why the NHS Independent Review Panel routinely results in NHS workers getting worse pay offers and changes to their T&Cs benefits that worsen their real pay situation? As a result Grant Shapps screams nurses earn less than RMT workers on the railway. The recruitment crisis in the NHS now’s sees it scrambling to improve the pension scheme that was destroyed by previous reviews.

it’s odd the government that less than 12 months ago had a vision of a high wage economy, gets upset when trade unions work to deliver a situation where real pay keeps pace (not grows) with inflation in the economy. After all it was Grant Schapps standing and applauding this message from the Prime Minister:- (from the Independent - you cant beat an independent review of a situation)

In his speech at the Conservative Party conference this week, Boris Johnson declared war on the UK’s “broken” economic model. After a decade of stagnating wages, he pledged to transform the UK into a “high-wage, high-skill, high-productivity economy”.

anyway yesterdays strike was not as impactful for me personally than this upcoming one on Saturday. Although I think Thameslink is still running, London Overground is not. Fortunately their are options I can use either the Metropolitan or Jubilee lines. What was noticeable yesterday was the reduction if peak hour car traffic locally. I suspect many Wednesday in the office workers simply worked from home all this week. It being school holidays and all.

 

[TUC]

I do think there is a lack of understanding amongst the unions about how much, outside of London, using the train is just one option for many people. There is a lack of recognition of market reality.

 

[Bald Rick]

And predictably the 8:30 is full and standing and leaving passengers behind.

Proper screw-up from Northern.

the first train out of St Albans left about 1000 people behind. These things happen.

 

[Vespa]

I do think there is a lack of understanding amongst the unions about how much, outside of London, using the train is just one option for many people. There is a lack of recognition of market reality.

Indeed in many areas including mine, buses do duplicate local rail journeys so they are not terribly inconvenienced, the only advantage train has it it's about 20 minutes quicker than bus to Liverpool other than that no dramas, Manchester is the same and it has a very good tram network that can compete well with the railways, the great fall back as ever is your own car.

I'm sure this is true for many urban areas round Britain.

London centric unions seems to forget that.

 

[jon0844]

the first train out of St Albans left about 1000 people behind. These things happen.

It's quite something when 700s (8 and 12 coaches) are full and standing. The first KGX service from Hatfield was a 387 and that had been crush loaded since Hitchin.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I do think there is a lack of understanding amongst the unions about how much, outside of London, using the train is just one option for many people. There is a lack of recognition of market reality.

There might be alternatives to deal with odd strike days but they will never be as a good as rail for speed when trying to get into any of our great regional cities so people will return. The long term issue is the attitude of the govt to what level of support for the railways it will tolerate but for all the soundbites from the prospective PM candidates about smashing the rail unions Truss has come out saying she wants to restore the full Northern Powerhouse Rail outputs so support for rail is there.

Unfortunately this is turning into a war of attrition with the travelling public stuck in the middle. Also potentially more concerning is Mick Lynch is seeing that with the Labour party all but abandoning their working class voter base he's thrusting himself into the vanguard of defending all workers and using the RMT as a proxy for widening the dispute.

Govt could have had this sorted for 5% if that hadn't been so obstructive back in February.

 

[Moonshot]

There might be alternatives to deal with odd strike days but they will never be as a good as rail for speed when trying to get into any of our great regional cities so people will return. The long term issue is the attitude of the govt to what level of support for the railways it will tolerate but for all the soundbites from the prospective PM candidates about smashing the rail unions Truss has come out saying she wants to restore the full Northern Powerhouse Rail outputs so support for rail is there.

Unfortunately this is turning into a war of attrition with the travelling public stuck in the middle. Also potentially more concerning is Mick Lynch is seeing that with the Labour party all but abandoning their working class voter base he's thrusting himself into the vanguard of defending all workers and using the RMT as a proxy for widening the dispute.

Govt could have had this sorted for 5% if that hadn't been so obstructive back in February.

Are you saying that Mick Lynch has his own agenda?

 

[Bantamzen]

The “core question” isn’t the statement you made upthread that I was addressing….

I’m not going to respond further on this point.



I’ve never said it didn’t? Again - see above.

I'm taking that as a win then.... <draws line in five bar gate>

The railway isn’t entirely publicly funded either.

It isn't, but unless there is a major rethink from Whitehall on how it is run and funded I can see less and less involvement from the private sector in anything other than infrastructure / rolling stock.

The private sector hasn’t been able to make the railway work (at least in the TOC/public transport sense) since. Hmmm… pretty much since it was invented.

Which is why a major rethink is needed, something I think we agree on.

I suspect your comments on the culture on the railway are about as useful as my views on the culture of the civil service would be.

You don't always have to be an insider to see the cultural problems. I know that a lot of people have negative views of the culture of the civil service, many of which do have substance. And reading through these forums as well as being a user of the the rail industry, we non-rail people can have similarly founded criticisms of your industry. Hell we only need to nip onto the National Rail Enquires site and check service disruptions to see how little importance the industry seems to be putting on passengers at the moment.

It reminds me of the scene in Die Hard II where a member of cabin crew on a 'Windsor Air' flight reassures a passenger that they are just like British Rail, they are late having been put in a holding pattern, but they get them there eventually. A few scenes later the blummin' thing is crashed by the terrorists controlling ATC....*

(*Just in case anyone reaches for the keyboard to complain, this is an attempt at humour, probably not to everyone's taste but I am a cynical, 52 year old Yorkshireman...)

Well on the day following the last RMT strike, the first train that ran into work was the 8:00. Today for some reason, the first train is the 8:30.

I wonder what time the first train will be after the next one.

I took a punt on the first Leeds train (07:57 ex Skipton) from Shipley this morning (having walked from Baildon as the first one towards Guiseley was at 07:53 connecting @ 08:22 to Leeds, and nothing towards Shipley until 09:41!). As always it was rammed to the hilt, but the majority of Shipley punters were pointed towards the 08:02 from Bradford FS albeit with one minute spare as the 07:57 was 4 late leaving.

But as pointed out above, the first one down from Ilkley wasn't until 09:21 meaning no peaks at all headed towards Bradford FS. I know things started late due to the signaller shifts, but putting nothing on for the first two hours is poor and just another small kick in the nethers for us punters that might actually want to use them.