Sun front page- iPads for Train Drivers

[Fokx]

Unless you do a very, very basic job, constant adaptation, change and training is a given in employment, and your salary is what you get paid to do it, you don't need extra.

Whilst that might be the case for your job and your terms and conditions, that simply isn’t the case for everyone generally.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Whilst that might be the case for your job and your terms and conditions, that simply isn’t the case for everyone generally.

It's a majority case, certainly. You're paid to do what your employer wants you to do (within reason) using whatever tools they want you to use, within your contracted hours.

 

[AlterEgo]

It is a completely different skill set if you’ve never used the software before, and one that you’ll have to constantly adapt to and be updated on.

I can think of no other industry where the union would demand money simply to learn about a more efficient way of working. It's an indefensible Spanish practice.

 

[QueensCurve]

The gutter press always have an issue with train crews being given tools to help them with the job. Some years ago the came out with outrage at British rail giving watches to train drivers.

 

[superkopite]

In most highly skilled professions (which train drivers surely are based on total remuneration among other things) you are indeed rewarded for constantly acquiring new skills and adapting to completely new ways of working.

In most highly skilled professions getting an iPad would not count as acquiring a new skill or a completely new way of working.

 

[snookertam]

In many public sector roles, such as mine, there is no extra pay either

Well maybe you and your colleagues should do what train drivers are doing and use your collective power to force an extra payment.

 

[Bantamzen]

No, that's not the case in most of the private sector.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Feb 2024 ==

Nor in the public sector.

Unless you do a very, very basic job, constant adaptation, change and training is a given in employment, and your salary is what you get paid to do it, you don't need extra.

I've lost count the number of software release / updates / rollouts I've been through, and have never had or expected a rise for any of them. Only when I have taken a serious step up in skill factors has pay increases been a factor, for example when I moved from coding basic functions in VBA to SQl / R / Python, which was a very big step up. Learning to read a document on a tablet and expecting more money is frankly laughable.

 

[snookertam]

No, that's not the case in most of the private sector.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Feb 2024 ==



Unless you do a very, very basic job, constant adaptation, change and training is a given in employment, and your salary is what you get paid to do it, you don't need extra.

Again it’s not about who needs what, it’s about whether drivers can force an extra payment for a change in working practices. People keep adopting a moral approach to this, when it simply comes down to who has the most power. The way the drivers see it is that if they give in on the slightest ground it could be the thin end of the wedge in terms of their wider pay and conditions, so will squeeze everything as far as they can.

When comparing to other industries, workplaces where extra payments etc do not happen, this is only because the workforces in these places don’t adopt the approach of train drivers. It’s not a matter of right or wrong, it’s a matter of who has the most power between workforce and management.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Well maybe you and your colleagues should do what train drivers are doing and use your collective power to force an extra payment.

I could.... but I don't need/want extra payment for stuff that I already use and get training for. Nor do I expect it.

When I started my job; there were no computers; everything was done on pen and paper and old-fashioned machines. Yes I got a performance-related payrise but not specifically for upskilling to use IT

Getting back on topic; I would rather my train turn up, reasonably on time regardless of whether the driver used an iPad, mobile phone, joystick, 3453-page hard-copy sectional appendix; route knowledge, driving experience or got instructions from his 8-year daughter using Zoom from home

 

[Facing Back]

We will be expecting some sort of financial deal when our new fleet comes in, usually wrapped up into a training agreement.

The last time I was in the "cab" of a train, I was 9 years old and was given a shovel to put some coal into the firebox so I admit to not being totally current. Surely new trains are easier to drive than old ones? In that case I assume that drivers are happy to take a modest pay-cut to reflect the reduced effort involved?

 

[43066]

I can think of no other industry where the union would demand money simply to learn about a more efficient way of working. It's an indefensible Spanish practice.

Is that’s what’s happening, though? Or has the union simply failed to agree the new technology as part of the wider dispute?

Since The Sun hasn’t even told us which TOC is affected it’s difficult to know.

 

[Facing Back]

Again it’s not about who needs what, it’s about whether drivers can force an extra payment for a change in working practices. People keep adopting a moral approach to this, when it simply comes down to who has the most power. The way the drivers see it is that if they give in on the slightest ground it could be the thin end of the wedge in terms of their wider pay and conditions, so will squeeze everything as far as they can.

When comparing to other industries, workplaces where extra payments etc do not happen, this is only because the workforces in these places don’t adopt the approach of train drivers. It’s not a matter of right or wrong, it’s a matter of who has the most power between workforce and management.

I suspect that there is a lot of truth in that arguemwnt.

 

[snookertam]

I could.... but I don't need/want extra payment for stuff that I already use and get training for. Nor do I expect it.

When I started my job; there were no computers; everything was done on pen and paper and old-fashioned machines. Yes I got a performance-related payrise but not specifically for upskilling to use IT

That’s your prerogative then, but it seems train drivers have no interest in adopting your approach and want the extra payment. You chose not to force the issue where perhaps you could have, train drivers want to force the issue. It’s that simple. There’s no right or wrong here, simply about the power to get what you want.

 

[Sorcerer]

I absolutely detest The Sun newspaper for a plethora of reasons, and by no means am I going to take their side on this issue seeing as it's the kind of lowest common denominator tabloid that will lean towards outrage rather than actual journalism and reporting. However, train drivers carrying personal iPads is not a revolutionary new idea. Swiss train drivers carry their own with real time information, and it's probably preferable than lugging around the needed gear in a backpack like others have pointed out. It's not exactly a big learning curve to use one either, let's be real, so I don't see why it should be part of an industrial dispute when there are already more important things to deal with in strike action.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

That’s your prerogative then, but it seems train drivers have no interest in adopting your approach and want the extra payment. You chose not to force the issue where perhaps you could have, train drivers want to force the issue. It’s that simple. There’s no right or wrong here, simply about the power to get what you want.

I wouldn't force the issue because there would be no point. I could just be shown the door and my job be given to someone else. Simples

Or maybe not simples because my replacement would have to be trained to the standard of my 30+ years service

 

[357]

Surely new trains are easier to drive than old ones? In that case I assume that drivers are happy to take a modest pay-cut to reflect the reduced effort involved?

The job has changed a lot since those days, see other threads where we were discussing downloads, being measured down to .01 of a second or mile per hour.

I took a £10,000 per year pay cut last year to go to another company that I thought would have a better working environment and has better conditions. Touch wood it has so far paid off and it's great to actually be treated like an adult, something I'd never experienced before in my driving career!

 

[Islineclear3_1]

The last time I was in the "cab" of a train, I was 9 years old and was given a shovel to put some coal into the firebox so I admit to not being totally current. Surely new trains are easier to drive than old ones? In that case I assume that drivers are happy to take a modest pay-cut to reflect the reduced effort involved?

Then you could also argue that if there was less stuff to lug around, drivers could take a pay cut on that basis too

 

[Facing Back]

Is that’s what’s happening, though? Or has the union simply failed to agree the new technology as part of the wider dispute?

Since The Sun hasn’t even told us which TOC is affected it’s difficult to know.

I'm not reading the Sun, I don't understand all of the long words they use but the first line of your comment is at the heart of this to me. I don't really expect a union to have a role in accepting/agreeing new technology as a matter of course. If they have safety concerns then of course these have to be considered. If there is training required then suitable provision needs to be made for this - and if the agreement is through mandated overtime then a bonus payment may be appropriate for the flexibilty/inconvenience.

Introduction and evolution of new technology is to my mind simply a fact of life and a feature of an increasing percentage of jobs.

I accept that this has been custom and practice on the railways for some time though and I believe that the changes proposed for both ASLEF and RMT is quite explicit about this too - if I remember it correctly.

I get your previous arguement about staff who lose money as a result and could agree with some provision to reflect this. I do not agree at all with the principle that any change implies a payment.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Feb 2024 ==

Then you could also argue that if there was less stuff to lug around, drivers could take a pay cut on that basis too

I hadn't thought of that!

 

[Islineclear3_1]

The last time I was in the "cab" of a train, I was 9 years old and was given a shovel to put some coal into the firebox so I admit to not being totally current. Surely new trains are easier to drive than old ones? In that case I assume that drivers are happy to take a modest pay-cut to reflect the reduced effort involved?

Mind you, back in the day, trains always had a second person, aka a guard. Nowadays, most trains are DOO and drivers have far more responsibilities and more to lose if they mess up

 

[mikeb42]

Yet these things differ by profession. As noted above in a previous field I worked for a professional services firm in central London and received a car allowance of several thousand pounds per year - despite not having a car, nor needing one to do the job. I don’t recall ever being required to justify that to anyone, so why should train drivers be expected to justify technology payments?!

Yes, but come on, you know as well as I do that the car allowance thing is a bit of a red herring. You were a commercial lawyer if I recall correctly, so obviously that was just another inventive way your employer found to throw even more buckets of money at you and your colleagues !

Possibly a tax-efficient one for both you and them at the time, and one which likely isn't used any more because that opportunity has been tinkered with since. It wasn't an incentive to do anything in particular, it wasn't linked to anything in particular, it was just even more money in a ludicrously remunerative niche that only exists within a London bubble almost completely detached from the rest of "normal" society.

Train drivers might (occasionally) get technology payments, but they don’t get bonuses, car allowances, private health cover any of the multitude of benefits available elsewhere in the private sector.

It's a sweeping generalisation that those are default benefits in most private sector jobs and it belongs in the same class of sweeping generalisations as the one that says it costs your employer £100kpa+ to pay you £60kpa+ merely to get you to push a few buttons for 35 hours a week.

Pretty much 100% of commercial jobs come with money purchase pensions for a start, often with a "Here's 5%, beyond that you're on your own, now f off" sting in the tail. The comparative costs of any sort of Defined Benefit alternative are enormous, rarely understood and widely ignored. Try building up the £750k+ fund needed to replicate a decent DB equivalent with minimal contributions from your employer for an instructive start.

Anecdote doesn't make data but my experience is of recruiting into a workforce almost entirely made up of PhD level STEM professionals with decades of experience in a cut-throat globally competitive commercial context. Remuneration is a reasonably generous salary, the legally mandated minimum employer's money-purchase pension contribution and nothing else whatsoever.

Everyone has to maintain their skills - for which read, essentially adapt completely every few years. Anyone trying to rely on their skills and knowledge from 10 years ago now would be as much use as a newborn baby. The principles of physics and mathematics don't change, but the day to day reality of doing the job is unrecognisable. You do this at your own expense and to a significant degree on your own time. If you don't, you'll be history in short order. Replaced by someone brighter, harder working, and these days quite often a (usually frighteningly impressive) product of the Chinese university system.

This might look like veering wildly off topic - but it isn't. Viewed through that lens, expecting to be paid off for just continuing to do your job in a way that's compatible with current practice looks completely surreal.

 

[Facing Back]

The job has changed a lot since those days, see other threads where we were discussing downloads, being measured down to .01 of a second or mile per hour.

I took a £10,000 per year pay cut last year to go to another company that I thought would have a better working environment and has better conditions. Touch wood it has so far paid off and it's great to actually be treated like an adult, something I'd never experienced before in my driving career!

I'm pleased to hear that (that it's paid off, not the pay cut!). Maybe there is a lesson there for the industry?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Feb 2024 ==

Mind you, back in the day, trains always had a second person, aka a guard. Nowadays, most trains are DOO and drivers have far more responsibilities and more to lose if they mess up

For which, as I understand it, drivers were handsomely remunerated when DOO was introduced. Which is quite right if they tale on significant extra responsibility and liability.

 

[bahnause]

However, train drivers carrying personal iPads is not a revolutionary new idea. Swiss train drivers carry their own with real time information, and it's probably preferable than lugging around the needed gear in a backpack like others have pointed out. It's not exactly a big learning curve to use one either, let's be real, so I don't see why it should be part of an industrial dispute when there are already more important things to deal with in strike action.

And we have agreed to T&C for using them. Things like time allowances for updating them and training. We definitely didn‘t just hand the out and watched what happened…

 

[Bletchleyite]

In most highly skilled professions getting an iPad would not count as acquiring a new skill or a completely new way of working.

It isn't in train driving now. Familiarity with basic tech is a given in all areas of life - the vast majority of people will just be able to pick these iPads up and use them with no instruction whatsoever other than the rules of where/when they are allowed to be used, because even if they don't have one they'll almost certainly have a smartphone, and all smartphones and tablets basically work in the same sort of way (the user interfaces of Android and iOS are not very different if all you're doing is reading PDFs). But for those who aren't, training can be provided.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Feb 2024 ==

For which, as I understand it, drivers were handsomely remunerated when DOO was introduced. Which is quite right if they tale on significant extra responsibility and liability.

Agreed, DOO makes the job considerably harder, so more money is quite reasonable. That would be comparable to a non-revenue guard becoming a revenue guard.

An iPad makes the job easier.

 

[43066]

The last time I was in the "cab" of a train, I was 9 years old and was given a shovel to put some coal into the firebox so I admit to not being totally current. Surely new trains are easier to drive than old ones? In that case I assume that drivers are happy to take a modest pay-cut to reflect the reduced effort involved?

Well, it’s never too late to retrain if you fancy giving it a go .

They aren’t necessarily easier to drive, no. There’s generally more to go wrong. You’d also be staggered at how technologically illiterate some members of the railway workforce are, although that’s changing as a younger generation comes through. My instructor didn’t even have his own mobile phone (in 2016).

I'm not reading the Sun, I don't understand all of the long words they use but the first line of your comment is at the heart of this to me. I don't really expect a union to have a role in accepting/agreeing new technology as a matter of course. If they have safety concerns then of course these have to be considered. If there is training required then suitable provision needs to be made for this - and if the agreement is through mandated overtime then a bonus payment may be appropriate for the flexibilty/inconvenience.

Introduction and evolution of new technology is to my mind simply a fact of life and a feature of an increasing percentage of jobs.

Im amazed anyone reads it.

The union’s role is along the lines you suggest above - ensuring that an agreement is reached that facilitates adequate training etc., and may or may not involve a payment. ASLEF have reached agreements at many workplaces about this however, as we know, the TOCs are currently prevented from negotiating with them in the usual way. New tech, new fleet introductions etc. are often baked into the annual pay rise negotiation rather than offered as a separate payment.

I accept that this has been custom and practice on the railways for some time though and I believe that the changes proposed for both ASLEF and RMT is quite explicit about this too - if I remember it correctly.

Indeed, and that’s why there’s no chance of those changes being accepted. The government could try to impose them, but I can’t see that happening, and it’s getting late in the day. It’s also true that The Sun’s implication that this issue is in any way an integral part of the national dispute is utterly misleading.

Yes, but come on, you know as well as I do that the car allowance thing is a bit of a red herring. You were a commercial lawyer if I recall correctly, so obviously that was just another inventive way your employer found to throw even more buckets of money at you and your colleagues !

We’re getting off topic. I was a lawyer by trade, then but then did an advisory role at a Big 4 prof services firm, which is where the car allowance came in. The law firm I was at previously paid (a lot) better, but didn’t offer a car allowance!

I’d respectfully disagree that it’s a red herring; it’s just an example of a benefit paid as part of custom and practice in one particular industry, just as tech payments are a feature on the railway.

 

[Fokx]

It’s an indefensible Spanish practice.

Doesn’t matter. It’s in their terms and conditions of employment, that is the defence.

 

[Facing Back]

Well, it’s never too late to retrain if you fancy giving it a go .

Don't think that I haven't considered it, normally in my drunker moments or when facing an all-nighter to finish a report

 

[bahnause]

An iPad makes the job easier.

It makes it easier for your employer to throw stuff at you. The first thing that always happens with new technology ist a flood of information to the user, not because it is necessary, but because it is now so easy. The information is often not very thought through because it is easy to change on the go and just send a “new version“. You need a really good quality gate to mitigate that risk.

I think the amount of information available on our iPads can be overwhelming and sometimes distracting. It is very flexible in a modern working environment, but there have to be some constraints in what it can an cannot be used for.

 

[Facing Back]

Im amazed anyone reads it.

I had assumed that it was mainly for the pictures

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Feb 2024 ==

The union’s role is along the lines you suggest above - ensuring that an agreement is reached that facilitates adequate training etc., and may or may not involve a payment. ASLEF have reached agreements at many workplaces about this however, as we know, the TOCs are currently prevented from negotiating with them in the usual way. New tech, new fleet introductions etc. are often baked into the annual pay rise negotiation rather than offered as a separate payment.

I have a slight concern about rolling this into a payrise as it's then forever. Is it is a one off incovenience then a one of bonus is sure more appropriate. If it is included in base salary then it should mean that all future training requirements for new fleets do not require additional remuneration - which we all know isn't going to be the case in 10 years time when the next generation of flying trains is introduced.

 

[HullRailMan]

Meanwhile, on planet earth, most workers just deal with changes in the workplace and get on with it. Can you imagine shop workers demanding extra pay every time a new piece of technology is introduced?

 

[Class385]

I drive with my iPad on in the cradle beside me. Tells me if am running early/late then allows me to input the reason for delay when safely stopped.
Can also be used for filling in emergency working form.