Railway Industrial Disputes Mk2

[Signal_Box]

Because I have been in some of the conversation with Whitehall. I wound be quite happy to be wrong! We need this over ASAP.

In my view, the deal is fairly good. The access to discounted travel for NR staff alone is equivalent to a big pay rise for me because I don’t have a car and travel everywhere by train. I think 4% now (backdated to Jan 1st) and 4% again in next January is decent enough.

then once we are out of the current predicament and spend 18 months working through the productivity improvements and efficiencies, a much better pay deal can be secured.

I’m with you, but people have for carried away with union talk of 11% or inflation at least raises which simply won’t happen.

 

[43066]

I’m with you, but people have for carried away with union talk of 11% or inflation at least raises which simply won’t happen.

You do realise it’s a negotiating position? Nobody (at least amongst the dozens of RMT members I’ve spoken to over the last few months) is seriously expecting 11%.

How about being offered a big fat zero, which is the offer ASLEF have received at my TOC. A real slap in the face tbh. I’ll be voting accordingly when I’m balloted. We’ll just have to slap back, I suppose.

I was most gratified to notice that my local station was closed for business today. Not a single wheel was turning on that piece of railway! I suppose I could have been on here complaining about how I’d been stranded, why wasn’t there a bus provided, I could have died of exposure, someone else should have paid for my travel etc.

Life is too short, so I simply spent £50 on Ubers and went about my business.

Bloody railway unions.

 

[Annetts key]

But what's the point of withdrawing labour? I don't think there actually is an actual aim here (other than hope to annoy the Government enough that they cave in, which isn't likely to happen)

I think this has already been answered. For the bargaining group (there are a number of different bargaining groups for different staff groups) for my grade (one within Network Rail), talks have been taking place since at least autumn of last year (2021). The company have been very reluctant to provide full detailed answers to the questions raised by the RMT negotiating team. The RMT made it quite clear that there will have to be a settlement at some point, and would like to negotiate in good faith. However, earlier this year it became clear that, that’s not what the company wanted to do. Hence, the union asked the members via the reps for feedback. The members were not happy, hence the union balloted for industrial action to show the company the resolve of the members. The company still did not move significantly. Hence we are now striking. Since the first group of strike days, Network Rail have at least moved a little bit more. But not enough to take it to the members as a referendum.

I think that if there was one reform to Union legislation I would heartily support (and I say this as a union member myself) it's that they should be forced to go back to their membership more often. Six months seems a ridiculously long time to stretch out a mandate for industrial action.

Why? If you shorten the timeframe, employers will just drag out any negotiations in the hope that another ballot will not go well for the union. What is it with people always wanting to move the goalposts?

How about if a strike was called before a deal was offered, and then one is offered? That should go to members for a decision, surely.

It depends on how good the deal is. If the new deal is not significantly different, or fails to address an important issue, why waste time, money and effort on a referendum?
Very different if it’s a reasonable offer, in which case, it’s likely that the strike would be called off.

Sorry, I saw you'd left the door ajar so I just had to crash through....

Don’t you mean a five bar gate? (Other designs of gate are available…)

I'd love a bit of positive input right now. To those commenting on the impact of industrial action, I'd like to pose this question.

In the face of attacks on pay and conditions, job security and even employment rights, what actions do you think should be taken?

I don't want answers telling me what you think we shouldn't be doing (e.g. inconveniencing customers), but rather some positive alternatives to strike action.

That’s a difficult question to answer. I will however say two things. What would the world look like if EVERYONE got a wage rise on the same day each year equal to the current RPI?
What would the world look like if everyone was on the same T&C, hence no need for any employer to seek to ever change them? If changes are needed, they would be negotiated for the whole country, so affect all the people.

Why do you think? I won’t go into detail, but one party to the negotiation is bound by corporate and employment law about what it can say. One isn’t.

Why are Network Rail negotiators being unable or unwilling to answer simple straightforward questions about their ideas during negotiations? See my also answer above.

For the bargaining group for my grade the union has been holding regular video conference calls for members and reps to update them on what is the latest situation. Between 300 and 500 members have been present on most calls. The union has no reason to mislead its members.

The offer is exactly as stated in the letter that has been shared upthread and the communications from the TSSA. The pay offer is not conditional on delivering the maintenance modernisation milestones, because maintenance modernisation is happening anyway; the formal consultation on that started on Thursday.

That’s for only one bargaining group though, isn’t it?
The situation may well be different for other bargaining groups.

The letter and appendix from Network Rail are quite clear that the pay offer is conditional on “maintenance modernisation” milestones.

Which, presumably, is why they haven’t put the NR offer to their members, even though most people I speak to are quite keen on it.

From the Network Rail members that I spoken to, and the TOC members as well, they are definitely not happy with the positions put forward by the respective companies.

Someone earlier speculated that the RMT were not putting something to a vote to prolong another dispute.

Surely that is illegal? If not it blinking well should be.

It’s perfectly legal. The decision was taken by the unions elected body, the National Executive Committee (NEC). The dispute is not only about pay, but also T&C and working practices.

I don’t know the legalities, but it feels borderline to me.

It’s not borderline, it’s called collective bargaining.

That is of course speculation. But given how the offer has progressed, it seems there is no more money. RMT members in NR would be wise to consider why they haven’t been offered a referendum, particularly when it has been reported that the RMT negotiators suggested the offer would be put to members.

Again, I can only speak about the bargaining group that I’m in, for that group, at no point did the union think it was a significant enough change for it to be put to members.

In my view, the deal is fairly good. The access to discounted travel for NR staff alone is equivalent to a big pay rise for me because I don’t have a car and travel everywhere by train. I think 4% now (backdated to Jan 1st) and 4% again in next January is decent enough.

then once we are out of the current predicament and spend 18 months working through the productivity improvements and efficiencies, a much better pay deal can be secured.

For the bargaining group that I’m in, it’s a really terrible deal. The discounted travel is not a significant improvement on the current arrangements that I have. The “productivity improvements and efficiencies”, called “modernisation” by Network Rail are all the mangers so called “good’ ideas from the last twenty odd years rolled together. Such as reducing scheduled maintenance by an average of 50%, getting other grades to do safety critical testing (FPL testing points) rather that the trained and competent signal technicians, getting anyone to place earths on the OHL instead of trained and competent OHL staff, cutting over 1800 staff, removing over 2000 vacant posts, bringing in a mandatory pension age of 67, destroying the current roster negotiation framework (including reducing the notice of change of roster to an outline six weeks beforehand, and the actual detailed roster as little as four weeks before the new roster commences). But they can find the money to employ roster clark’s where none existed before (again for the bargaining group that covers my grade).

Meanwhile, they ignore the continued increase in bureaucracy. Increase the frequency of mandatory company medicals (now for me, it’s twice the frequency compared to 2020), increase the number of staff being randomly tested and frequency of testing for drinks and drugs. Spend countless millions on new leased road vehicles which are not very good quality (one of ours, less than 18 months old, has spent more time off the road than on it this month).

Here’s a typical misleading extract from a Network Rail FAQ document that “answers” some questions about the changes that Network Rail intend on bringing in. Keep in mind that they claim they are only changing working practices and not terms and conditions…

How can fatigue levels be reduced?

The short answer is more effective rostering. In creating our proposals, we’ve considered different ways of creating a roster with the aim of reducing levels of fatigue. We believe that our proposal is the best way to do this and it’s compliant with the new approved Fatigue Standard. By ensuring that everyone works to the 39/39/65 shift pattern agreed through 2BC over 10 years ago, there will be more shifts in the same block of working time but these shifts will be shorter, 8 hours instead of 12.

The “39/39/65” is referring to up to 39 weeks of nights per year, up to 39 weekends per year, of which a maximum of 65 weekend turns. This was indeed agreed in 2010 (the “2BC” document), and applies to staff employed from the date this was agreed, or who have taken promotion (more details below).

So if you are currently on former Amey T&Cs, your average contracted hours per week is 40.
If the shift length is now eight hours, that means you work five out of the seven days in a week. That at first sounds reasonable. Until you consider what happens when you are coming off night shifts. Typically a night shift ends at 06:00 or 07:00 hours. You go home and sleep. If they want you to do a early shift next, you will only get one ‘real’ day off, as after a night shift, you will be asleep until say 15:30 or later.

Even if you are on one of the other maintenance contracts, which are an average of 35 hours per week, you may be rostered a mixture of six, seven and eight hour shifts, and could still be rostered five shifts in a week. So again if you are coming off nights, the situation is not much different from that described above.

Talking about the “2BC” document. The company say it’s “working practices”, but that very same document (from 2010) says this:

This document outlines details of the changes to the specific elements of existing terms and conditions of the affected employees within the Infrastructure Maintenance Function

And

The following changes to terms and conditions of employment will supersede and replace all existing National, Regional and local agreements covering job descriptions, competency frameworks, team size by task, hours and rostering arrangements.

More details on the 39/39/65…

4.4.1 A weekend shift is defined as any shift commencing on or after 18.00 hours on a Friday evening and before 05.59 hours on a Monday and where the greater part of the shift is between these times.

4.4.4 Those Infrastructure Maintainers who are employed after (Date of implementation) may be rostered for up to 39 weekends comprising of 1 or more shifts throughout the calendar year up to a maximum of 65 shifts).
4.4.5 Those Infrastructure Maintainers who are promoted after 31st March 2014 may be rostered for up to 39 weekends comprising of 1 or more shifts throughout the calendar year up to a maximum of 65 shifts).

4.5.3 Those Infrastructure Maintainers who are employed after (Date of implementation) may be rostered for up to 39 weeks of nights in a calendar year.
4.5.4 Those Infrastructure Maintainers who are promoted after 31st March 2014 may be rostered for up to 39 weeks of nights in a calendar year.
4.5.5 For the purposes of this agreement, a midweek night shift is defined as any shift commencing on or after 18.00 hours and where the greater part of the shift is between 22.00 hours and 05.59 hours (inclusive), Monday to Thursday.

Under the current arrangements, rostered are negotiated between union representatives and management via a three stage process. The aim of the union representatives is to try to get as reasonable a roster for their members as possible, including reasonable breaks between different shifts.

But Network Rail management want to completely do away with this three stage process, as they don’t like it when representatives point out where they have not complied with the existing rules. Or question how much rest members get between different shifts.

On the subject of productivity, this is in the 2BC document:

2. Productivity Stage One payment : 1% increase to basic rates of pay triggered by the achievement of a 5% increase in national productivity.
3. Productivity Stage Two payment : an additional1% increase to basic rates of pay triggered by the achievement of a further 5% increase in national productivity, with the proviso that that each Delivery Unit must have achieved at least a 5% increase as well.

Productivity Stage Payments
The Stage One productivity payment will be triggered when Maintenance achieves and maintains an absolute 5% increase in the moving annual average of productivity for three consecutive financial periods. Productivity is measured from the level being achieved at the ‘Go Live’ date
The Stage Two productivity payment will be triggered when Maintenance achieves and maintains a further 5% increase in the moving annual average of Productivity over and above that reached in Stage 1 for three consecutive financial periods. The overriding proviso for the Stage Two payment is that each Delivery Unit must have achieved at least a 5% increase in productivity in three consecutive periods.

Despite before the members agreeing to the “2BC” changes, the company saying that they saw no reason why the above targets would not be met, no one has received either of these productivity payments.

So hands up who wants to have absolutely no social life, work lots of nights and weekends, and be forced to help carry 60 foot lengths of rail around, earth OHL and be a general dogs body, even though you were employed to carry out signalling maintenance? Don’t all rush at once now…

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Why are you so sure it is not going to happen ? You may well be right but there is history of Whitehall / government finding some funding when their arses are against the wall.

What you have to consider here is the fact that the RMT leadership are not just fighting the good fight on behalf of their union membership, there is the other side to their leadership that sees themselves as an unofficial pseudo-political party with shall we say "extreme left-wing" political aims. Can you really believe it is that second part to the RMT make-up that will not be in the mind of the Conservative Party with regards to your somewhat rudely phrased suggestion above?

Shades of Thatcher and Scargill (him with the Shredded Wheat hairstyle) in the Conservative Party fight in the miner's dispute, with the lessons learnt by the previous Heath defeat being brought into play, will most certainly be in the mind of Truss, should she be the next Prime Minister, and finding monies to pay for a triumphal RMT victory in this current dispute will be something very low indeed on her agenda.

 

[142blue]

It is very unlikely, albeit not impossible especially when that sh*te Thatcher tribute act Truss takes over the hot seat.
If it happens then every worker in the country is a slave from then onwards so at least you won’t be alone.

Not when you are going self employed you ain't

 

[Bantamzen]

Well that’s fine, as a tax payer and member of the public I want my say on their earnings, too. It’s only fair.

And you do. You can choose you favourite political party to decide on public sector wages, and you can choose to spend your hard earned wherever you like. Also you can state your opinions on all our jobs, something sadly that seems to be a crime here when non-railway people express opinions on railway jobs. Passengers having on opinion on railway jobs and the service those staff deliver, the horror....

But they do use it. Passenger numbers are already approaching pre Covid levels. Despite our best efforts we can’t seem to get rid of them! .

So in other words, passengers are still down on 2019. And more importantly so is revenue. And as I am sure you know, cash speaks louder than words!!

*wrong answer buzzer*.

If people are rude to me I’m generally rude back. Sorry if that doesn’t fit in with your mental image of how railway staff are supposed to tug our forelocks and bow and scrape. I can assure you that it won’t be changing .

The 1980s have just called again about wanting their grumpy back.....

Being rude to punters or colleagues is simply uncalled for. It really doesn't help anything, my general approach is if someone is rude just smile sweetly & do what I gotta do. Nothing puts a rude person in their place than not getting a reaction. And that includes grumpy train drivers...

But seriously, speaking as a former TU rep, please be aware that a moment of rudeness can escalate very, very quickly. Many of the cases I dealt with as a rep were due staff and / or managers falling out with each other, or staff getting complained about (and these were in the days before the complainathon that is social media). So many of these disputes could have been avoided if the member of staff had simply taken a deep breath, stepped back from the situation and if necessary come to one of us to discuss. Honestly, being a TU rep taught me a lot on how to deal with all sorts of situations were conflicts occur, and being rude back was never an answer.

It shouldn't need a special deal to make productivity changes. If there's a way an industry can be more productive, then the normal response of any business would be to implement it. All the more reason to when public money is involved.

It really shouldn't, especially in a revenue driven business.

You do realise it’s a negotiating position? Nobody (at least amongst the dozens of RMT members I’ve spoken to over the last few months) is seriously expecting 11%.

Is it though? Reading through these threads I get the impression that not only is an inflation busting rise desired, but is demanded by both members and unions.

How about being offered a big fat zero, which is the offer ASLEF have received at my TOC. A real slap in the face tbh. I’ll be voting accordingly when I’m balloted. We’ll just have to slap back, I suppose.

Have you actually had an offer from your TOC that says 0%? If so, would you care to share it, even just the text of the offer if you'd prefer not to divulge who you work for?

I was most gratified to notice that my local station was closed for business today. Not a single wheel was turning on that piece of railway!

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it permanently. Especially with this government that has been happily ripping up proposed railway projects, whilst overseeing reductions in services up and down the country.

I suppose I could have been on here complaining about how I’d been stranded, why wasn’t there a bus provided, I could have died of exposure, someone else should have paid for my travel etc.

I'm going to say I have no doubt you'd be first to moan if you got stranded...

Life is too short, so I simply spent £50 on Ubers and went about my business.

Good for you, sadly not everyone can afford 50 brick on taxis.

Bloody railway unions.

They said the same about the Romans, just saying like...

 

[JoeyB]

Because I have been in some of the conversation with Whitehall. I would be quite happy to be wrong! We need this over ASAP.

In my view, the deal is fairly good. The access to discounted travel for NR staff alone is equivalent to a big pay rise for me because I don’t have a car and travel everywhere by train. I think 4% now (backdated to Jan 1st) and 4% again in next January is decent enough.

then once we are out of the current predicament and spend 18 months working through the productivity improvements and efficiencies, a much better pay deal can be secured.

The financial offer may be tempting.

However, don't the changes to maintenance concern you? For example, how is an S&T van (which is already packed to bursting with S&T equipment) going to fit pway or OHL stuff in it? I keep hearing Shapps saying we'll have these multi-skill vans driving around with fewer staff in, but you'll need much much bigger vans for them to be carrying around what's needed.

I'm sure if it wasn't conditional then the offer would be accepted. But the people who I speak to who work on the front line say these changes simply won't work and will make the railway less safe.

Now this may be incorrect, but the company have put out no information at all on how it will work or how it will be safe in a practical level. It's almost like they've never been out on track.

 

[Fokx]

As a non union, non striker it’s not at all far that the actions of some effect those who did not strike in a fire and rehire operation.

I’m neither, this prospect has only hardened my contempt towards those who are striking and the union.

Not to get too personal @Signal_Box but luckily many of the predictions you’ve made earlier in this thread have not come to fruition, such as when you predicted that Signal box staff would not vote for action.

I wouldn’t worry about fire and rehire because quite simply, they can’t fire all of us without closing the entire railway, and what political party would ever agree to that?

Most guards can’t be sacked as trains can’t run without them and/or huge upgrades to software and stations. Drivers can’t be replaced instantly and we’re all ready suffering from a massive shortage. Signallers are skilled staff who can’t be instantly replaced by someone off the street, sack them and not a wheel will turn as we’ve seen. Station staff are required for assistance, operations and revenue protection. Control staff are required to sort the mess of covid and already have high work loads etc…

I really wouldn’t jump to the conclusion of fire and rehire at this stage. I’d also point out that if fire and rehire was to happen, it would always have been the plan and not the fault of the strikers that you’re not too happy with. The GBR ‘modernisation’ plan has been Grant Shapps’ as wet dream longer than the strike action has.

 

[91108]

Not when you are going self employed you ain't

You won’t be a worker then though. You’ll be an owner, manager, operative, cleaner, driver, admin, tea maker, receptionist etc etc. (delete some of the roles depending on the size of your business).
Ive been self employed, and have got every respect for those that are. I’ve got friends who are builders, joiners, mechanics, and window cleaners and they are all putting their prices up as well.

 

[Bantamzen]

Not to get too personal @Signal_Box but luckily many of the predictions you’ve made earlier in this thread have not come to fruition, such as when you predicted that Signal box staff would not vote for action.

I wouldn’t worry about fire and rehire because quite simply, they can’t fire all of us without closing the entire railway, and what political party would ever agree to that?

Most guards can’t be sacked as trains can’t run without them and/or huge upgrades to software and stations. Drivers can’t be replaced instantly and we’re all ready suffering from a massive shortage. Signallers are skilled staff who can’t be instantly replaced by someone off the street, sack them and not a wheel will turn as we’ve seen. Station staff are required for assistance, operations and revenue protection. Control staff are required to sort the mess of covid and already have high work loads etc…

I really wouldn’t jump to the conclusion of fire and rehire at this stage. I’d also point out that if fire and rehire was to happen, it would always have been the plan and not the fault of the strikers that you’re not too happy with. The GBR ‘modernisation’ plan has been Grant Shapps’ as wet dream longer than the strike action has.

Don't be too quick to dismiss the possibility of 'fire & re-hire'. To be clear I would never support such a policy for railway staff, but as the P&O case has shown the government right now they are very slow off the mark in stopping the practice. And let's be honest, how many staff would be willing to give up their jobs right now?

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

I wouldn’t worry about fire and rehire because quite simply, they can’t fire all of us without closing the entire railway, and what political party would ever agree to that?

I see that in the phrase "fire and rehire" above, you only talk of the firing, but make no mention of the rehiring, Is it that you assume no-one will be rehired when you mention the closing of the entire railway.

 

[MalaiseForever]

I'm sure if it wasn't conditional then the offer would be accepted. But the people who I speak to who work on the front line say these changes simply won't work and will make the railway less safe.

I don’t think the latest NR offer is conditional on anything, other than an agreement to work towards the proposed changes with the unions and a halting of industrial action.

I do appreciate your other points. And we all know Shapps is a massive idiot, to put it politely.

 

[Annetts key]

I see that in the phrase "fire and rehire" above, you only talk of the firing, but make no mention of the rehiring, Is it that you assume no-one will be rehired when you mention the closing of the entire railway.

Some staff will not sign new contracts if this happens. They will take the redundancy payments and leave. That could leave some parts of the railway in a difficult situation, with the possibility of some areas where they don’t have enough staff with the required skills.

Think I’m not serious? There are now a number of Network Rail depots where there are already two or more “teams” of labour only contractors because there are not enough Network Rail staff. At least one of which lost at least three staff last year due to them being dead against the new roster that was imposed by management.

The company kind of acknowledge that they know a substantial number would leave, that’s why they are being careful with how they are offering voluntary severance (VS).

29 July 2022

RMT Press Office:

Massive staff survey reveals the dystopian future awaiting passengers if the industry and government force rail cuts through.

Rail workers have painted a chilling picture of the future awaiting passengers if the brutal cuts being proposed by the industry and the Tory government are implemented.

RMT conducted a survey asking rail workers what they thought would be the impact on passengers of the plans to close ticket offices, cut track and infrastructure maintenance, run trains under Driver Only operation, cust jobs across the industry and introduce more ‘multi-functional roles’.

More than 10,000 rail workers responded to the survey in just five days with overwhelming majorities saying that they would worsen the passenger experience on trains and at stations make the railways even less accessible to disabled passengers
put passengers at greater risk of the kind of accidents seen at Potters Bar, Hatfield, Grayrigg and Stonehaven.

RMT General Secretary Mick Lynch said,

“Too often the people who speak for the rail industry are a clique of company directors fixated with their owning group’s share price or civil servants with their eyes on a knighthood. The real voices of the rail industry are in this survey and they paint a chilling picture of the future being forged by Grant Shapps, the train operating privateers and Network Rail.

What is being called ‘modernisation’ is in reality a brutal drive to cut staff costs that will make Britain’s trains, stations and track less safe and less accessible to travel on and it’s being driven a government that’s only thinking about the interests of the super-rich profiteers”.

Notes for editors:
RMT surveyed rail workers in six categories: fleet maintenance, track and infrastructure maintenance, on-board staff, station staff and other staff. We asked them questions based on the rail industry’s proposed cuts to track maintenance, ticket offices and jobs and its attempts to bring in new multi-functional roles and revive Driver Only Operation.
Workers were asked about their view of the impact of the proposed cuts on passengers. In addition to quantitative evidence, RMT sought to collect testimony and examples from the frontline keyworkers who deliver rail services.
The union opened the survey of its members on 18 July. Within five days it had received more than 10,000 responses.

Key results:
Almost 70% of Network Rail track and infrastructure maintenance workers reported that they had seen cuts to their operations in the last year. Many workers are worried that maintenance has already been cut too much and that Network Rail is risking passenger safety.
Almost 80% of Network Rail track and infrastructure maintenance workers reported that they were aware of NR’s plans to cut maintenance jobs and schedules in the future.
92% of track and infrastructure maintenance workers agreed that Network Rail’s cuts will put passengers at greater risk with 75% strongly agreeing.
88% of station staff responding said that the government and industry’s plans would worsen the passenger experience.
89% of station staff said that the plans would worsen the experience for disabled passengers and those who need more support.
More than 85% of on-Board staff surveyed said they believed that the government’s plans for introducing more Driver Only Operated trains, which can run without a second member of staff on board, and new multi-functional on-board staff roles, would worsen the passenger experience.
A massive 93% of on-board staff said they believed that it would worsen the experience of travelling by train for disabled passengers and those needing more support.
Around 30% of fleet maintenance workers are aware of plans to cut maintenance schedules in the future.
70% of fleet maintenance workers said they believed that cutting fleet maintenance regimes would put passengers at greater risk. Lessening the number of inspections on fleet will increase the risk of trains entering service with faults, increasing the risk of service disruption or accidents.
Signalling operations workers are not hostile to the use of new technology but have reservations that the need to cut costs is being prioritised over safety. They warn that the drive to push signalling into a few Rail operating Centres risks losing local knowledge and means that risks of failure are spread over a wider area. Many are also worried about the growing workloads on signallers.
Some of the quotes in the survey:

“I worked for BR in a maintenance length gang from 1976 till 1978 and then track welding to the present day, I have never seen it looking so poor.”
“Inspections and Maintenance are already at an all-time low. The amount of jobs in back log is ridiculous and the amount of staff we already don't have is ridiculous also. To now cut back even further would be nothing short of unsafe.
“General maintenance prevents failures - if we reduce maintenance, more failures will occur that we previously could have caught. We’re supposed to prevent failures, not simply react. Failures can cause dangerous situations and we should be doing everything we can to prevent them.”
“Risk based maintenance is playing with lives! Already with hot weather we are seeing an increase in broken Fishplates etc. Under RBM they might not necessarily be seen.”
“My concern is if a team member is expected to have multi discipline competencies they will be competent on paper but will not have the hands-on practice required to maintain that skill / competence due to having too many competencies. Therefore mistakes will happen which could make things unsafe.”
“Less experienced employees and more contractors will result in less quality and more chance of a major incident like the days of Railtrack. We are already massively understaffed in my department and are using 6 contractors regularly who are very inexperienced and need babysitting.”
“Hatfield and Potters Bar crashes were caused by maintenance cut-backs, it’s an accident waiting to happen.”
“Making staff multi-functional means less people for lots of different jobs. Stretching resources so thinly is bound to impact customers in a negative way especially the elderly and vulnerable who often need extra help with mobility and guidance through the new processes”
“The Ticket Office is the first point of contact for most people requiring assistance and/or reassurance about their journey.”
“Passengers still prefer people to give them the right information about ticket prices and help with journey enquiries.”
“Often those living with learning difficulties, mobility impairments and disabilities want to talk to a person rather than a confusing machine. People don’t understand the complex intricacies of the ticketing system and will likely pay more than if they were able to speak to a person in a ticket office.”
“We are already overstretched due to staff shortages and this would worsen the safety aspect of the job. We are also already struggling to do the day-to-day station duties.”
“Closing Ticket Offices and replacing them with retail units increases the risk of staff being physically assaulted and having no place of safety to escape from such attacks.”
“DOO is a bad idea and an unsafe way to operate a train service. Passengers feel safe when they see members of staff onboard carrying out their duties and helping with their needs during their journey.”
“With DOO there will be no guarantee that there will be a member of staff on board to help passengers.
“Most stations that we stop at don't have any staff. Therefore, the Guard is imperative in helping passengers with disabilities”.
“We regularly struggle now with supporting vulnerable passengers and passengers who need assistance, cutting staff will worsen the experience for them.”

Attached is a PDF of the survey results.

 

[Lancy99]

I see that in the phrase "fire and rehire" above, you only talk of the firing, but make no mention of the rehiring, Is it that you assume no-one will be rehired when you mention the closing of the entire railway.

Many near retirement age would simply walk away.

 

[Annetts key]

I don’t think the latest NR offer is conditional on anything, other than an agreement to work towards the proposed changes with the unions and a halting of industrial action..

This offer is subject to acceptance and is conditional on written confirmation that (1) the current industrial dispute is resolved and no further industrial action in respect of the current dispute will take place (2) the productivity items detailed in Appendix B & D are implemented, and (3) the key milestones set out in Appendix A (operations) and C (maintenance) are achieved.

Looks conditional to me….

 

[tomuk]

Some staff will not sign new contracts if this happens. They will take the redundancy payments and leave.

What redundancy payments? It fire and rehire not redundancy and rehire.
It's been done before P&O, British Gas is the famous one but they did it in the public sector at Shropshire Council over 10 years ago. Issued everyone with notice that new terms would apply, reduced sick pay, reduced redundancy pay other changes, you could either agree and sign it or walk away.

 

[Fokx]

Don't be too quick to dismiss the possibility of 'fire & re-hire'. To be clear I would never support such a policy for railway staff, but as the P&O case has shown the government right now they are very slow off the mark in stopping the practice. And let's be honest, how many staff would be willing to give up their jobs right now?

I’m not dismissing ‘fire and rehire’ as a concept, but I strongly believe to attempt it with the railway will both be political suicide and additionally one of the hardest industries to enact it (probably second to the NHS), due to the sheer amount of skilled labour and timeframes to rehire. Unlike P&O using agency staff, I don’t believe it’s going to be possible in any shape of form to replace the entire railway workforce in theory with agency staff, and those who are skilled from oversees due to the amount of training and numbers of people that would be required to emigrate to brexit island for such a thing to take place.

I genuinely believe this cabinet keeping fire & rehire was purely for an attempt to use it on the railway industry. However, I also believe that this current cabinet has no physical idea how the railway system actually works (a bit like that late 90’s prism rail documentary where the CEO of prism rail, a former bus company manager, worked alongside his front line employees at WAGN), including the DfT, and thus haven’t realised the challenge of doing so.

 

[Killingworth]

Not when you are going self employed you ain't

Which seems to be what quite a number of Network Rail staff are doing and still turning out as part of the orange army which contains a host of sub contractors.

 

[Fokx]

Many near retirement age would simply walk away.

I’m nowhere near the retirement age, and under the rumoured proposals for my grade I’ll be walking away

 

[Annetts key]

What redundancy payments? It fire and rehire not redundancy and rehire.
It's been done before P&O, British Gas is the famous one but they did it in the public sector at Shropshire Council over 10 years ago. Issued everyone with notice that new terms would apply, reduced sick pay, reduced redundancy pay other changes, you could either agree and sign it or walk away.

P&O staff got redundancy payments.

 

[baz962]

Can you imagine trying to replace all the fired drivers. Apart from the rules in the classroom, trainees are taught by other drivers called driver instructors. Those instructors are also just drivers on the roster and trainees drive the instructors train. They can only really effectively train one at a time and the complement at my depot is around 5% of the depot. So if you are lucky and none of the instructors leave, they would train about two trainees a year. That a lot of years.

 

[Moonshot]

Can you imagine trying to replace all the fired drivers. Apart from the rules in the classroom, trainees are taught by other drivers called driver instructors. Those instructors are also just drivers on the roster and trainees drive the instructors train. They can only really effectively train one at a time and the complement at my depot is around 5% of the depot. So if you are lucky and none of the instructors leave, they would train about two trainees a year. That a lot of years.

That's assuming the fired drivers don't actually re apply for their roles.

 

[JamesT]

What redundancy payments? It fire and rehire not redundancy and rehire.
It's been done before P&O, British Gas is the famous one but they did it in the public sector at Shropshire Council over 10 years ago. Issued everyone with notice that new terms would apply, reduced sick pay, reduced redundancy pay other changes, you could either agree and sign it or walk away.

Assuming your contract doesn’t allow such variations in Ts&Cs (if it did, they wouldn’t have to fire you), then fire and rehire is redundancy. They’re making your old position redundant and inviting you to apply for a new one. At which point the statutory redundancy procedures kick in. Not doing so opens them up to unfair dismissal claims.
Certainly in P&O and BG they paid redundancy, https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/shropshire-council-issues-redundancy-notices-to-all-6500-staff/ mentions notices going out but I haven’t found an article on what happened next.

 

[MalaiseForever]

Looks conditional to me…

Yeah… conditional on exactly what I said it was. Maybe I phrased it poorly.

 

[EbbwJunction1]

I have a question which I hope that you can help me with, please.

It's often claimed, particularly by the unions, that money raised by the UK franchises goes to the European owners of the TOCs to pay for the development of their "local" franchises. Is this actually true, and if not, why isn't it exposed as being so?

Thank you.

(I'm sorry if this has been covered already in this topic, but I haven't got the time to wade through the 60 pages, so please bear with me!)

 

[irish_rail]

Can you imagine trying to replace all the fired drivers. Apart from the rules in the classroom, trainees are taught by other drivers called driver instructors. Those instructors are also just drivers on the roster and trainees drive the instructors train. They can only really effectively train one at a time and the complement at my depot is around 5% of the depot. So if you are lucky and none of the instructors leave, they would train about two trainees a year. That a lot of years.

Exactly. This is why fire and rehire will never be a thing on the railway. You need the current lot to show the new lot the ropes, and that just wouldn't happen if the current lot where all fired!! If they were gonna attempt it they'd have tried by now, but they know the railway would disintegrate and politically that'd be curtains.

 

[Dunnideer]

Can you imagine trying to replace all the fired drivers.

That's assuming the fired drivers don't actually re apply for their roles.

Exactly. This is why fire and rehire will never be a thing on the railway. You need the current lot to show the new lot the ropes, and that just wouldn't happen if the current lot where all fired!!

That’s not how ‘fire and rehire’ is actually applied though. They don’t sack you from the company altogether first and then make you reapply for your job as a new start, they present you with a new contract with the terms and conditions they want changed and say sign this by (date) or your current contract becomes void and you no longer have a job. That’s how Asda and British Gas did it.

Some people may be lucky to be in a position to just walk away and find another job if this happens. Personally if they do this I’ll have no choice but to sign up. I am a lifelong railwayman, I have no experience of any jobs outside the railway and have no exam qualifications or any other skills. The chances of me getting a job outside the railway above toilet cleaner level are basically zero. At that point I’d be looking at losing my house and not being able to feed my kids or keep them warm in the winter. Unless the new contract is absolutely awful (and I mean really, really terrible) I would have to sign it. What other choice would I have?

 

[Falcon1200]

Think NR and the government have behaved shamefully and caused this to drag on which has totally backfired on the government

Has the RMT changed its demands of NR at all, or does it expect negotiations to work one way only, ie the employer accedes to everything they want ?

We are too big and too powerful to be pushed around by the company.

The RMT boasted before the first Signallers strike that it would 'bring the country to a halt'; Which it most certainly did not. Great inconvenience was caused to some, but most of the country carried on regardless. IMHO the RMT is in danger of grossly overestimating its power and influence, in opposition to a Government which is extremely hostile towards it (and vice versa of course).

There's no public or political pressure on the Government to resolve this dispute. There is also zero chance that the Government will give the RMT a win and sign off a big pay rise for rail workers which will then only fuel demand for the same from teachers, nurses etc.

Indeed; Although a pay rise of some sort is certainly justified (for all rail staff).

I wouldn’t worry about fire and rehire because quite simply, they can’t fire all of us without closing the entire railway, and what political party would ever agree to that?

Could NR decide to simply impose new contracts; Or alternatively, start paying at the new rates and basically say, take it or leave it ?
But of course, firing qualified rail staff and replacing them with agency people is a complete non-starter, which NR, and I am sure the Government too (despite what the latter might say) know perfectly well.

 

[Annetts key]

That’s not how ‘fire and rehire’ is actually applied though. They don’t sack you from the company altogether first and then make you reapply for your job as a new start, they present you with a new contract with the terms and conditions they want changed and say sign this by (date) or your current contract becomes void and you no longer have a job.

BR already did this in the past, the unions very quickly went into dispute. And got a better deal than the company’s original offer. I’m not saying this will happen this time.

 

[Clarence Yard]

How about being offered a big fat zero, which is the offer ASLEF have received at my TOC. A real slap in the face tbh. I’ll be voting accordingly when I’m balloted.

Your TOC (assuming it is a DfT one) hasn’t offered a big fat zero. It hasn’t yet offered any pay rise figure at all - that’s the problem.

It wants your union to agree to the productivity changes before any pay figure is tabled or discussed. And whilst the detail of those changes is worked out, to not take any industrial action!

Which is why this dispute is not going to be solved quickly.