Shortage of drivers on GWR

[dk1]

Can quite image the thread on here next summer because GWR had to cancel a load of services because they've got a load of crew on holiday burning their 2020 leave!!

Wasn't that the faux pas that Ryanair made a few years back?

 

[Mag_seven]

At least for the next few days they have instituted an "amended timetable" allowing the traveller to plan properly rather than planning to run the full service on the day and "hoping for the best".

 

[Horizon22]

At least for the next few days they have instituted an "amended timetable" allowing the traveller to plan properly rather than planning to run the full service on the day and "hoping for the best".

Which is always the best way to do it. People saying "that's a whole line of route out" at least allows passengers to travel with specific contingency plans be in place to move people around. Being in control of a bad situation is better than appearing clueless.

 

[Class 170101]

Isn't the Sleeper a bit pointless at the moment anyway?

London is in Tier 4 and I think Reading is as well, the next stops for passengers are in the Southwest, I hardly think those in Devon and Cornwall will be happy having Londoners turn up en masse especially after what happened last night at St Pancras.

 

[Horizon22]

Isn't the Sleeper a bit pointless at the moment anyway?

London is in Tier 4 and I think Reading is as well, the next stops for passengers are in the Southwest, I hardly think those in Devon and Cornwall will be happy having Londoners turn up en masse especially after what happened last night at St Pancras.

Wouldn't say it would be "en masse" anyway. You need specific reservations and the sleeper has been very lightly loaded for the past few months.

 

[theironroad]

Isn't the Sleeper a bit pointless at the moment anyway?

London is in Tier 4 and I think Reading is as well, the next stops for passengers are in the Southwest, I hardly think those in Devon and Cornwall will be happy having Londoners turn up en masse especially after what happened last night at St Pancras.

Doubt the sleeper being canceled will stop them, plenty of day trains and roads available.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Isn't the Sleeper a bit pointless at the moment anyway?

Probably in the grand scheme of things, but keeping it running provided a service for those limited pax who find it essential and it also maintains the competencies of staff involved in what is quite a niche operation, use of locos and stock, coupling, sleeper attendants etc. Having to regrow these skills from scratch would put quite a delay on reinstating the normal service at some point in the future and probably would be the death knell of the service as the alternative of retiring what are ageing assets might prove too attractive to a DfT looking for ways to cut costs.

 

[Horizon22]

The sleeper is only being curtailed until the 3rd January, don't think 2 weeks will hurt competence too much.

 

[co-tr-paul]

Remember, Riviera has its 2 week Christmas break anyhow. Numbers were increasing after lockdown 2 until dropping off again at start of London tier 3 . Jan 3 is planned start. Driver traction knowledge has been quoted as reason.

 

[Bald Rick]

The solution is to pay the employee for untaken leave (ie. buy the holiday allowance from them). However, the accountants like this even less!

The solution is to comply with the law. All workers who have been unable to to take their full leave allowance this year are permitted to roll over up to 4 weeks worth Into 2021 and 2022.

Rules on carrying over annual leave to be relaxed to support key industries during COVID-19

Workers who have not taken all of their statutory annual leave entitlement due to COVID-19 will now be able to carry it over into the next 2 leave years.

www.gov.uk

 

[Flange Squeal]

The solution is to comply with the law. All workers who have been unable to to take their full leave allowance this year are permitted to roll over up to 4 weeks worth Into 2021 and 2022.

Rules on carrying over annual leave to be relaxed to support key industries during COVID-19

Workers who have not taken all of their statutory annual leave entitlement due to COVID-19 will now be able to carry it over into the next 2 leave years.

www.gov.uk

Playing devil's advocate, could it be argued that this may not strictly apply as the reason many people will likely have a lot of leave left is because they chose not to take it through the rest of the year like they normally would, rather than a case of not being able to take it? I know myself and a number of colleagues would probably fall into this category. I'd imagine it's been pretty rare for many depots' quotas to be at the limit much during 2020?

 

[Horizon22]

Playing devil's advocate, could it be argued that this may not strictly apply as the reason many people will likely have a lot of leave left is because they chose not to take it through the rest of the year like they normally would, rather than a case of not being able to take it? I know myself and a number of colleagues would probably fall into this category. I'd imagine it's been pretty rare for many depots' quotas to be at the limit much during 2020?

I'm aware of many not having taken leave across the railway because of having "home spares" and the like. If you feel like you're already at home and the options to do much with your leave are limited, its not surprising there's so many with large allocations left. The most I've ever known is 5 days to be carried over.

 

[infobleep]

GWR has a policy for allowing us to carry leave over, but we have to apply to do it. We get 4 days automatically granted (I think) and the rest needs approval at director level. Rostered leave still had to be taken during the year, regardless of the situation, so many crew took their annual leave in lockdown.

It would be impractical to carry over a years worth of leave for a whole depot, as it would be fairly difficult to fit it all in the year after without allowing extra quotas of ad-hoc leave per day, and the associated coverage issues that things. Now amplify that across the business.

Can quite image the thread on here next summer because GWR had to cancel a load of services because they've got a load of crew on holiday burning their 2020 leave!!

Whilst we can carry leave over where I work, due to COVID-19, we can't all be off at once. So there is a give and take. Generally though, not everyone wants to be off all at thr same time. Not everyone is married or with families and people are of differring ages even if they do have families.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Dec 2020 ==

At least for the next few days they have instituted an "amended timetable" allowing the traveller to plan properly rather than planning to run the full service on the day and "hoping for the best".

That is indeed very sensible and you are right, they should be thanked for doing that.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Dec 2020 ==

At least for the next few days they have instituted an "amended timetable" allowing the traveller to plan properly rather than planning to run the full service on the day and "hoping for the best".

That is indeed very sensible and you are right, they should be thanked for doing that.

Isn't the Sleeper a bit pointless at the moment anyway?

London is in Tier 4 and I think Reading is as well, the next stops for passengers are in the Southwest, I hardly think those in Devon and Cornwall will be happy having Londoners turn up en masse especially after what happened last night at St Pancras.

You can still leave a tier 4 area or go into one for a permitted essential reasons.

 

[greatkingrat]

The solution is to comply with the law. All workers who have been unable to to take their full leave allowance this year are permitted to roll over up to 4 weeks worth Into 2021 and 2022.

Rules on carrying over annual leave to be relaxed to support key industries during COVID-19

Workers who have not taken all of their statutory annual leave entitlement due to COVID-19 will now be able to carry it over into the next 2 leave years.

www.gov.uk

It's not that simple. That only applies to the statutory minimum leave, most railway employees will be entitled to more than this. There is no legal entitlement to carry over any days over the statutory minimums.

 

[Bald Rick]

It's not that simple. That only applies to the statutory minimum leave, most railway employees will be entitled to more than this. There is no legal entitlement to carry over any days over the statutory minimums.

Statutory minimum is 20 days annual leave, and 8 days bank holidays. There won’t be many people who didn’t use up some of that.

 

[baz962]

Statutory minimum is 20 days annual leave, and 8 days bank holidays. There won’t be many people who didn’t use up some of that.

It's not actually that. 28 day's or equivalent and it's actually hour's. It's usually said it's 28 day's to make it easy for people to work out and the 28 is if You work a traditional Monday to Friday , 40 hour week.

 

[dk1]

On the many occasions I have had any odd days leave left they are always carried over to the end of the financial year. The rare occasions I have had weeks leave left I have been offered the choice as above but payment if I prefer. The railway is normally good like that.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

It's not actually that. 28 day's or equivalent and it's actually hour's. It's usually said it's 28 day's to make it easy for people to work out and the 28 is if You work a traditional Monday to Friday , 40 hour week.

My wife used to work in a factory that annualised her leave in hours equivalent to the minimum statutory, but because the length of their working day varied throughout the year (the two extremes being a 4-day week 0700-1430 and a 5-day week 0700-1800) the number of hours required to ‘take a day off’ depended on what the date was and could be extremely unfair at times.

 

[dk1]

My wife used to work in a factory that annualised her leave in hours equivalent to the minimum statutory, but because the length of their working day varied throughout the year (the two extremes being a 4-day week 0700-1430 and a 5-day week 0700-1800) the number of hours required to ‘take a day off’ depended on what the date was and could be extremely unfair at times.

That sounds awful. No wonder she no longer works there.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

That sounds awful. No wonder she no longer works there.

It really was. I forgot to add that taking Christmas week off was mandatory (no complaints about that) but in order to get a reasonable break in the summer, she had to use basically all of her remaining leave in one lump as it was a long-hours period.

Without being unkind, I really think people like myself who work in unionised industries sometimes don’t appreciate just how b***** lucky we are.

 

[greatkingrat]

My wife used to work in a factory that annualised her leave in hours equivalent to the minimum statutory, but because the length of their working day varied throughout the year (the two extremes being a 4-day week 0700-1430 and a 5-day week 0700-1800) the number of hours required to ‘take a day off’ depended on what the date was and could be extremely unfair at times.

Actually that is the fairest way to do things - everyone will end up working the same amount of hours over the course of the year regardless of when they take their leave.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Actually that is the fairest way to do things - everyone will end up working the same amount of hours over the course of the year regardless of when they take their leave.

I think the phrase you were looking for was ‘equally awful’, there wasn’t a lot of fairness about it. What made it worse was only selected grades within the factory / lab environment were on those contracts, anyone MS grade, supervisory or office staff was on salaried positions with their leave calculated in days.

 

[baz962]

My wife used to work in a factory that annualised her leave in hours equivalent to the minimum statutory, but because the length of their working day varied throughout the year (the two extremes being a 4-day week 0700-1430 and a 5-day week 0700-1800) the number of hours required to ‘take a day off’ depended on what the date was and could be extremely unfair at times.

Before this career , I worked somewhere doing originally 12 hour , four on and four off and the entitlement was 20 total day's. ( No actual requirement for an employer to give bank holidays ) . So you could call it twenty day's or twelve plus eight bank holidays. I then did a different role that was four on and two off , nine hour shifts. That was 26 total day's. Also that is rounded up . The twenty day example is actually nineteen . Something , although the employer can round up and not down , but doesn't have to.

 

[JamesT]

The RMT on South Today just now claiming that GWR have been failing to clean mess rooms and other shared spaces adequately which they claim has led to the prevalence of COVID amongst staff. GWR deny this and say they have been cleaned regularly and additionally after every positive test.

 

[northernbelle]

The RMT on South Today just now claiming that GWR have been failing to clean mess rooms and other shared spaces adequately which they claim has led to the prevalence of COVID amongst staff. GWR deny this and say they have been cleaned regularly and additionally after every positive test.

The messrooms I've been in have always seemed clean and spaced out - nothing is fail safe though. The difference between now and earlier in the year is that many crews opted to have their breaks outdoors but this isn't so appealing now.

If the suspicions of a more transmittable Covid strain being prevalent in the south of England are true, then it's going to be significantly harder to contain the spread of it.

 

[Stigy]

So the question needs to be asked as to how the drivers are all catching it and how it is spreading. If so many are off; I'd be surprised if it was all external to work. Given that drivers are alone whilst driving, social distancing in mess rooms and when travelling pass is an obvious starting point.

How does anyone contract Covid? Short of staying locked up and isolating regardless, it could literally be from anywhere.

I wonder if a proportion of those who’ve caught it are DIs who refused a bubble with a trainee based on safety, yet still socialise in ‘Spoons? Just playing Devil’s Advocate

 

[theageofthetra]

The messrooms I've been in have always seemed clean and spaced out - nothing is fail safe though. The difference between now and earlier in the year is that many crews opted to have their breaks outdoors but this isn't so appealing now.

If the suspicions of a more transmittable Covid strain being prevalent in the south of England are true, then it's going to be significantly harder to contain the spread of it.

A very good point, I took most of my PN's outside but obviously that's not always an option this time of year. I personally think the issue is drivers having to constantly take on and off masks after touching filthy cab controls, pax door buttons and handles.

 

[Wilts Wanderer]

Is it permitted to wear gloves while driving?

 

[dk1]

Is it permitted to wear gloves while driving?

Of course. Where what you want.

 

[iphone76]

Our extreme

Of course. Where what you want.

I wear a Mankini. I find that keeps people away and me safe. But seriously, we have lost quite a few drivers at our place in the last day or so as the extremely clinical vulnerable have been told to stay at home. Thank goodness for people willing to do RDW or the service would be through the floor.