RMT TOC strike action called off

[Peterthegreat]

Re. Sunday working... how would staff feel if it could be guaranteed that they would never be rostered to work both a Saturday and a Sunday? That would overcome the "family time" objection, and treat both weekend days as the same to all intents and purposes.

I think I would prefer to work alternate weekends. I.e Saturday and Sunday one weekend and have the next weekend off (or something similar). However it would depend on personal circumstances.

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Re. Sunday working... how would staff feel if it could be guaranteed that they would never be rostered to work both a Saturday and a Sunday? That would overcome the "family time" objection, and treat both weekend days as the same to all intents and purposes.

The potential problem with that being that they would get zero weekends of outside of annual leave weeks.

For instance, I am rostered to work 2 in 3 saturdays and 1 in 3-4 Sundays. Even a slight uptick would put that at 2 Saturdays and 1 Sunday for every 3 weeks, and if I couldn't work both a Sat and Sun that would be 1 day each weekend. That would be far worse for family time.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Apr 2023 ==

I think I would prefer to work alternate weekends. I.e Saturday and Sunday one weekend and have the next weekend off (or something similar). However it would depend on personal circumstances.

Indeed, the 'long weekend' is a major benefit of the 3 week rostering pattern seen across the majority of the TOCs. Be uproar if that was sacrificed

 

[Dieseldriver]

Re. Sunday working... how would staff feel if it could be guaranteed that they would never be rostered to work both a Saturday and a Sunday? That would overcome the "family time" objection, and treat both weekend days as the same to all intents and purposes.

I’d want the complete opposite, might aswell work both Saturday and Sunday if the weekends ‘ruined’ anyway to give you more full weekends off.

 

[trainophile]

That makes more sense. Okay, how would people feel if guaranteed a 2-day weekend off every second week?

 

[SCDR_WMR]

That makes more sense. Okay, how would people feel if guaranteed a 2-day weekend off every second week?

It would work better if say you did 3 weeks of early shifts, followed by 3 weeks of lates with the long weekend being the change between the two. Rather than my current 1 week of each alternating.

That would mean 2 full weekends worked for every 3 (and crucially only 1 extra day), or if Sundays were included then it would be an extra day off in the week to compensate for thar Sunday.

Sundays would still need to be at current enhanced rates to get people to even consider it though.

And it would be a headache for rostering as you couldn't have all those in on the Sunday (included) off on the same midweek day for instance.

 

[scrapy]

People with families and kids barely see them when on weeks of lates, so 3 weeks of lates in a row would probably be unacceptable.

Similarly there are some people that really struggle with earlies but can manage a week.

 

[Scott1]

That makes more sense. Okay, how would people feel if guaranteed a 2-day weekend off every second week?

I already have this, I just want Sunday to be included in the working week, not compulsory over time, as at my TOC you don't gain any holiday from it and it means every other week is a 6 day week.

 

[12LDA28C]

That makes more sense. Okay, how would people feel if guaranteed a 2-day weekend off every second week?

Many drivers currently work considerably more than 1 in 2 Saturdays so no doubt they would love to have a whole weekend off every fortnight. Not sure the TOCs would be quite so keen to give drivers more Saturdays off than they currently have though... that would just lead to more problems covering Saturday shifts.

 

[Drogba11CFC]

If the wrong people are at the top of the Department/Treasury/both, a competent Government will arrange a sideways promotion to the Department of paperclips.

Or the General Assistance Department...or failing that, archives at Ballymucky.

 

[yorksrob]

Or the General Assistance Department...or failing that, archives at Ballymucky.

Indeed, there are many "opportunities" available for the anti-railway lot

 

[eldomtom2]

You are forgetting one little detail.
The cuts are being applied by the DfT - although with Treasury sanction. The DfT is not the government, and even if the tories do lose the next GA, which I cannot see with the current Labour leader still in charge, the DfT will still be in charge of running the railways. SoSec are the figureheads at government level, but they only appear to deliver policy. The DFT still control the purse strings.

The influence of the civil service compared to elected ministers can be greatly exaggerated. Who the government is does matter.

 

[RailExplorer]

I am rostered to work 50% of my Saturdays and about 40% of my Sundays. I work more Saturdays than some weekdays. I actually don’t mind the current set up, but neither is my TOC in dispute (yet). But everything depends on family circumstances. I actually swap with colleagues to get more weekdays off and work their weekends.

 

[InOban]

The influence of the civil service compared to elected ministers can be greatly exaggerated. Who the government is does matter.

But there is an ingrained road culture within the DfT, as that is what most of them work on. Even more in the Treasury. Mind you, we do need some people to sit on some of the more ludicrous schemes we read about, including in this forum .

 

[newtownmgr]

So almost a year on and still no offers have been made? How much longer do you think you’ll have to wait?

Meanwhile this series of tweets from somebody who had lunch with DfT and Treasury bods makes it clear where on the priority list sorting the railways is:

https://twitter.com/southeastrailgp/status/1644041715605700608?s=46&t=MnbJYkf65sKE1B7ZXrK0Lg

So yeah, good luck with that no strings payrise.

Please tell me I’m not the only one that’s highly cynical about the truth in those tweets. Surely any civil servant or minister that’s allowing those comments to be made public is risking his job. Some of those comments will only serve to alienate a large part of the traveling public & dare I say it the electorate in general. It goes against policies regarding carbon neutral amongst others. If true it will confirm maybe that this government & the tories know they are finished for probably a generation and intend to do as much damage as possible before they go.

 

[CaptainHaddock]

I believe his family live in the Vienna area.

This means nothing to me.

 

[dereksingh291]

Any idea how long the guards, booking office and station staff including track maintenance staff have got left before they get made redundant if anyone doesn’t mind me asking?

 

[SCDR_WMR]

Any idea how long the guards, booking office and station staff including track maintenance staff have got left before they get made redundant if anyone doesn’t mind me asking?

A very long time yet.

 

[1E67]

This means nothing to me.

I was playing scrabble the other night and only had four letters left, but it means nothing to me, O V N R.

 

[Wyrleybart]

Re. Sunday working... how would staff feel if it could be guaranteed that they would never be rostered to work both a Saturday and a Sunday? That would overcome the "family time" objection, and treat both weekend days as the same to all intents and purposes.

I personally prefer weekends on and weekends off.

 

[InkyScrolls]

I was playing scrabble the other night and only had four letters left, but it means nothing to me, O V N R.

The last time that happened to me I took a walk through the cold air.

 

[RPI]

This means nothing to me.

 

[Merle Haggard]

I was playing scrabble the other night and only had four letters left, but it means nothing to me, O V N R.

I got the original Ultravox reference straight away, but yours took a while...
Very clever

 

[Mag_seven]

OK looks like we don't have much more to discuss on this issue at the moment. I suggest we reopen the thread as soon as there is a significant development in this issue.