TPE driver shortage

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Who says any of them do? Do you know any of them well enough to know their political views?

In answer to your question, some of those in the top echelon are not exactly backward in coming forward to express their political views, so one has no need to know them well enough, providing that they are truthful about their beliefs when making such statements. I could name one in particular if I wished, but if I did, all that would happen is that some forum members would rush to make postings that claim that I am always naming him as an example.

Your mention of Hingis somewhat confused me as what a Swiss female professional tennis player has to do with the matter, I am at a total loss to comprehend.
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The pay is irrelevant, working an 80hour week is bad for the employee and employer and is likely to lead to long term social and health problems. No amount of money would see me working an 80 hour week long term. What's the point? Earn lots of money and never see kids growing up/wife/friends etc?! Seems a pointless way to live as far as I'm concerned.

Some people have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the term "Personally motivated satisfaction" and seem incapable of understanding such a premise.
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NO EMPLOYEE irrespective of their salary should be expected to work additional time without remuneration and without choice.

Fine, then what is your view on people, who like me, worked very long hours on my own personal choice to do so, that being solely my own choice to do so without any pressure being applied upon me whatsoever.
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LOL. 80 hours? He's lucky. I once worked 110-120 hours a week for 6 weeks on a project, with only half a day off during that time. But it isn't right. I wouldn't do it again, no matter the reason.

I admit that 110-120 hours a week for a period of six weeks is indeed excessive. But working 80 hours a week is no great hardship to someone like me who treated that as the norm and I can assure you was far longer periods in the 6-week project period you make reference to.

When I was on the Canadian Hydro project, working out of our offices in Toronto, many long internal flights to the various sites were the norm and the travelling time involved was just not spent snoozing but in two/three people discussing project matters.

 

[A-driver]

In answer to your question, some of those in the top echelon are not exactly backward in coming forward to express their political views, so one has no need to know them well enough, providing that they are truthful about their beliefs when making such statements. I could name one in particular if I wished, but if I did, all that would happen is that some forum members would rush to make postings that claim that I am always naming him as an example.



Your mention of Hingis somewhat confused me as what a Swiss female professional tennis player has to do with the matter, I am at a total loss to comprehend.
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Some people have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the term "Personally motivated satisfaction" and seem incapable of understanding such a premise.
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Fine, then what is your view on people, who like me, worked very long hours on my own personal choice to do so, that being solely my own choice to do so without any pressure being applied upon me whatsoever.
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I admit that 110-120 hours a week for a period of six weeks is indeed excessive. But working 80 hours a week is no great hardship to someone like me who treated that as the norm and I can assure you was far longer periods in the 6-week project period you make reference to.



When I was on the Canadian Hydro project, working out of our offices in Toronto, many long internal flights to the various sites were the norm and the travelling time involved was just not spent snoozing but in two/three people discussing project matters.

Firstly you were not referring to the union leaders who obviously do have socialist based views but about senior reps in TOCs who are elected by the membership.

Secondly, if you choose to work long hours for no extra pay then that is entirely different and also completely and utterly 100% irrelevant to anything mentioned on this thread. Many people choose to volunteer for things with no pay. But what people on this thread are on about is being expected to do overtime with little or no choice/pay.

There is little point in posting such off topic statements as it simply leads people to waste time answering irrelevant points after being led to believe that what you were posting had some kind of link to the topic being discussed...

 

[Carlisle]

I disagree. Air traffic control and pilot jobs are also something you can go into a receive full training, just like a train driver. All have similar implications if you make a mistake and all are classed as professional jobs with very strict selection processes. Bus driving, however, is based around the Highway Code and car driving, something which the vast majority of the population have taken and passed a test in.

I'm sure if government or whoever provided the organisation and funding you could eventually devise a train driving course and examination undertaken like many other higher education courses or proper apprenticeships

 

[A-driver]

I'm sure if government or whoever provided the organisation and funding you could eventually devise a train driving course and examination undertaken like many other higher education courses or proper apprenticeships

You could do that with almost any job. My point is that air traffic control and pilots are not a million miles off of any other transport industry job. Pilots and traffic controllers operate machines and computers, like many railway grades do. They are not great engineers or scientists who develop aircraft etc.

 

[Robertj21a]

You could do that with almost any job. My point is that air traffic control and pilots are not a million miles off of any other transport industry job. Pilots and traffic controllers operate machines and computers, like many railway grades do. They are not great engineers or scientists who develop aircraft etc.

So many people 'operate machines and computers' that it's a rather meaningless comment anyway. It appears that you can earn an excellent salary as a train driver despite possibly having few qualifications and skills - I'm not too sure many other jobs will give such a comparatively high reward. That's partly why I felt that a train driver is far more comparable to a bus (or tram) driver.

 

[Carlisle]

So many people 'operate machines and computers' that it's a rather meaningless comment anyway. It appears that you can earn an excellent salary as a train driver despite possibly having few qualifications and skills - I'm not too sure many other jobs will give such a comparatively high reward. That's partly why I felt that a train driver is far more comparable to a bus (or tram) driver.

I got the impression at start of the 1990s Mr Major & co thought that privatisation would solve many of the railways woes simply because it was private and not bad old state run BR. I don't think they properly thought through the realities associated with the high costs and length of time it actually took to bring in fully productive drivers from scratch compared to say the 3 weeks or so it took a bus company to train someone for a PCV licence, so I guess the difference in wages has a lot to do with this

 

[ComUtoR]

Fine, then what is your view on people, who like me, worked very long hours on my own personal choice to do so, that being solely my own choice to do so without any pressure being applied upon me whatsoever.

Paul, I'm a firm believer of personal choice. What I don't believe it the expectation and the enforced overtime. The problem I have is that it isn't always personal choice either. There is fair amount of pressure from those above and the people who aren't putting in the extra hours are often overlooked and often given less when it comes to pay rises. So whilst it is "choice" for some it isn't for others. Working without pay should not be a way to climb the corporate ladder and employees should not be punished or discriminated against because they aren't "team players"

I'm glad that you felt that it was your choice and I sincerely hope that it was and I support a good work ethic. They way in which some industries work doesn't cross over and one size doesn't fit all but respect must be given to each employee. The attitude that I work extra so everyone else must just isn't right.

I have no objections against those who work rest days as its their time and not for me to control but a business that is reliant on rest day working and looks at those who don't work extra with great disdain frankly has bad working practices.

 

[gtr driver]

So many people 'operate machines and computers' that it's a rather meaningless comment anyway. It appears that you can earn an excellent salary as a train driver despite possibly having few qualifications and skills - I'm not too sure many other jobs will give such a comparatively high reward. That's partly why I felt that a train driver is far more comparable to a bus (or tram) driver.

Bear in mind that not all qualifications are useful for many jobs and not all skills are easily examined. The ability to concentrate, to work alone, to follow instructions, to handle shifts, to follow rules, to be able to swap between long term and short term memory, to reposition yourself to react to sudden changes whilst not allowing monotony to compromise yourself, are perhaps more inate personal qualities rather than ones that can be taught or learned. The actual mechanics of making a train go are not complicated; stopping is trickier(!)but can be learned, but much of the rest is the stuff that is not obvious until you do the job.

 

[A-driver]

So many people 'operate machines and computers' that it's a rather meaningless comment anyway. It appears that you can earn an excellent salary as a train driver despite possibly having few qualifications and skills - I'm not too sure many other jobs will give such a comparatively high reward. That's partly why I felt that a train driver is far more comparable to a bus (or tram) driver.

When you say 'qualification' what are you referring to? Are you referring to a degree which lets face it an awful lot of people now get? As you need some form of qualification, just not formal but certainly some employment and education history, to start training as a train driver. It's certainly not a job anyone can walk off the street and get. The assessment process proves this as someone with a few GCSEs and little or no employment history wouldn't stand a chance at getting through the application and assessment process. Plus, nowadays a degree is not essential for a job as many people have them. Relevant experience tends to trump qualification in any job.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Paul, I'm a firm believer of personal choice. What I don't believe it the expectation and the enforced overtime. The problem I have is that it isn't always personal choice either. There is fair amount of pressure from those above and the people who aren't putting in the extra hours are often overlooked and often given less when it comes to pay rises. So whilst it is "choice" for some it isn't for others. Working without pay should not be a way to climb the corporate ladder and employees should not be punished or discriminated against because they aren't "team players"

I'm glad that you felt that it was your choice and I sincerely hope that it was and I support a good work ethic. They way in which some industries work doesn't cross over and one size doesn't fit all but respect must be given to each employee. The attitude that I work extra so everyone else must just isn't right.

I just thought that I would make a general observation from my own personal observations prior to my retirement in 2010. I most certainly was NOT stating that I felt that everyone should adopt the attitude that I took as my annual salary was of an extremely high level and being a higher-rate taxpayer, even if "overtime" payments had been made, I would have seen the tax element take away much of the "extra" income.

Of course I realise that in much lower paid positions to the one that I held, overtime is viewed by workers as one way of increasing their take-home pay and I would fight to the last to defend their rights to work to achieve such a method of take-home pay increase.

Finally, despite my asking what "HINGIS" meant that was said in a somewhat brusque reply to one of my postings, I find that no-one has given me an answer to my question. All that word conveyed to me was the name of the female Swiss tennis professional player who took a very early retirement due to injury but has recently decided to play again after a long time period.

 

[notadriver]

So many people 'operate machines and computers' that it's a rather meaningless comment anyway. It appears that you can earn an excellent salary as a train driver despite possibly having few qualifications and skills - I'm not too sure many other jobs will give such a comparatively high reward. That's partly why I felt that a train driver is far more comparable to a bus (or tram) driver.

I can think of other jobs that require few qualifications but a intensive on the job vocational training and that pay well.

Crane driver
Oil rig worker
Deep sea Diver.

Qualifications aren't everything.

 

[DarloRich]

Finally, despite my asking what "HINGIS" meant that was said in a somewhat brusque reply to one of my postings, I find that no-one has given me an answer to my question. All that word conveyed to me was the name of the female Swiss tennis professional player who took a very early retirement due to injury but has recently decided to play again after a long time period.

Paul - I think you have you knickers in a twist over a typographical error. It should read things not Hingis

As for working 900000 hours per week as a senior manager: Surely you should be delegating to your underlings and relaxing on the golf course

 

[Haydn1971]

I can think of other jobs that require few qualifications but a intensive on the job vocational training and that pay well.

If your prepared to work away from home, many construction crafts pay well too....
Plasterer
Joiner
Plumber
Electrician

My friends son cleans windows in Canada, on Skyscrapers - he's on £60k - no real skills other than not phased by heights

As mentioned a friend of mine has no academic skills, just a good computer artist, he's earning really good coin working in the computer games industry - high £40k's

 

[ComUtoR]

I just thought that I would make a general observation from my own personal observations prior to my retirement in 2010. I most certainly was NOT stating that I felt that everyone should adopt the attitude that I took as my annual salary was of an extremely high level and being a higher-rate taxpayer, even if "overtime" payments had been made, I would have seen the tax element take away much of the "extra" income.

Paul, I'm aware of the intent of your posting but you left it open ended and I needed to clarify if you believed it was a good or a bad thing that working extra for free was acceptable.

I accept and support your position that choice is what drives some people but I'd like to highlight that that choice is often culturally ingrained,; especially those in the higher salary brackets. High salaries are often given because of the work intensity and extended hours. It's not legal so "expected" for those on high salaries as their salary compensates them. You state correctly that those on lower income use overtime to increase their income. Why not pay a decent wage in the first place if the employer has the money to pay it. Please don't go there I already know the answer. Consider that simply rhetorical.

Personally I don't take the position that the higher your salary the more acceptable poor working practices must be accepted. The working time regulations were brought in to protect employees form such an ingrained culture. I believe EVERY employee has the right to claim compensation for their personal time. Whether your on £150k pa or £10k pa makes little difference to me.

 

[Lincoln]

As mentioned a friend of mine has no academic skills, just a good computer artist, he's earning really good coin working in the computer games industry - high £40k's

Off topic slightly. Skills, especially creative and artistic ones are difficult to quantify as they are often intrinsic to the individual and cannot be taught as such. Was quite interesting watching the recent BBC Digital season as they hypothesised that these sort of workers would be difficult to replace by machines and computers.

I say good on them!

 

[notadriver]

If your prepared to work away from home, many construction crafts pay well too....
Plasterer
Joiner
Plumber
Electrician

My friends son cleans windows in Canada, on Skyscrapers - he's on £60k - no real skills other than not phased by heights

As mentioned a friend of mine has no academic skills, just a good computer artist, he's earning really good coin working in the computer games industry - high £40k's

I think your friend earns every bit of his cash. I couldn't do that on skyscrapers.

Interesting the other list of occupations you list. According to the official NS-SEC (occupations list) train drivers are in that category (craft or lower technical occupations).

 

[Haydn1971]

Off topic slightly. Skills, especially creative and artistic ones are difficult to quantify as they are often intrinsic to the individual and cannot be taught as such.

Interesting point (perhaps this subject needs splitting out) - I work in Civil Engineering, my background is focused on operational safety, traffic sign design and highway geometry design - I often drift into transportation issues like conceptual level rail, trams, etc, but my focus is on the three areas primarily.

Traffic sign design is well documented, yet many educated designers simply don't get the concept of an end user being able to understand a sign whilst passing at 30-70mph, the concepts behind text block spacing is lost on many, it's frustrating for me... Highway geometry too, it's a well documented topic, with design guidance freely available, yet we still have bad design cropping up from educated engineers... Operational safety, the concept of removing, reducing or mitigating against risk is something many educated engineers just don't have - Some of the best designers I've ever had to have the pleasure of working with have not been educated to degree or higher levels, but just problem solve naturally, can visualise issues, read drawings upside down and emotionally live their dream....

When talking shop and someone says that they have a degree or more in Civil Engineering, I think, but what have you done that you can be physically proud of ? This experience is very difficult to measure or quantify, so we as an industry rely on snapshot accreditation, the post nominals - it's really quite soul destroying :-/

 

[tony6499]

I got the impression at start of the 1990s Mr Major & co thought that privatisation would solve many of the railways woes simply because it was private and not bad old state run BR. I don't think they properly thought through the realities associated with the high costs and length of time it actually took to bring in fully productive drivers from scratch compared to say the 3 weeks or so it took a bus company to train someone for a PCV licence, so I guess the difference in wages has a lot to do with this

So very true, I don't think anyone outside the industry knew what they were getting involved with or had the knowledge to deal with it once the senior managers they inherited left because of one reason or another.

 

[Crossover]

Or just poach them from Northern. That used to work quite well for several TOCs

As my colleagues often say, make it someone else's problem

Again, at what salary do you consider employees should accept they will be working unlimited overtime whenever their boss clicks their fingers?!

From discussions I have had, my employers appear to have got such a salary level whereby overtime isn't paid as a matter of course and "at such levels, reasonable unpaid overtime is deemed to be expected" (though it was mentioned that occasional long hours may be looked on differently)

Some people have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the term "Personally motivated satisfaction" and seem incapable of understanding such a premise.

Unfortunately, what tends to be the case is one can work as many hours as they like, either paid or unpaid, and the recognition they get for it will be somewhere between virtually none and absolutely none, and I have come across a number of people who have put in an amount of effort only to be made redundant months later and have vowed never to do it again. I guess it depends on the employer as to where on the above scale ones work falls, but with my employers, I know exactly where on the scale it is!

Fine, then what is your view on people, who like me, worked very long hours on my own personal choice to do so, that being solely my own choice to do so without any pressure being applied upon me whatsoever.

But on the flipside, in doing so, you just put pressure on yourself. Plus, it can then become the accepted norm too

 

[CharlieSpotted]

Fine, then what is your view on people, who like me, worked very long hours on my own personal choice to do so, that being solely my own choice to do so without any pressure being applied upon me whatsoever.

You must enjoy your job very much. I'm pleased for you in that regard - but it's a rare thing.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

You must enjoy your job very much. I'm pleased for you in that regard - but it's a rare thing.

For the newer members of this website, I will reiterate that I retired in 2010. Indeed, I took great personal satisfaction of project success in that I was the prime mover from time of inception. I feel that I must add that being in the position that I held, I was rewarded by the end-of-project bonuses, but unlike those charlatans on the London-centric financial centre with bonuses, mine was a reward for my personal guidance of each project. Remember, I headed our Toronto office from 1995 to 2004, with no askance of extra financial recompense for making the move. I just viewed this another challenge that I had total confidence in my ability to make a success of.

There are those who in the past have sarcastically referred to my lack of project delegation to subordinate senior managers, but perhaps I am a throw-back to the days of having "hands-on" total project commitment, as displayed in past days by people of the type of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Perhaps being born in 1945 meant that I retained the values that my parents and grandparents took as normal.

 

[DaiGog]

It's a job role that sometimes comes with an expectation, or necessity, to work long hours - not a salary.

Any senior management role has the requirement to get the job done, which sometimes may necessitate being at work (or working) in excess of a normal working week. Management remuneration packages should reflect this - either in paid salary or other benefits - but of course they don't always.

If a manager or anyone on a flat salary but in a more junior position finds him/herself frequently working in excess of the hours laid out in their contract without further remuneration, then that is a matter for the individual and their seniors.

Put simplistically, a role such as train driver requires the individual to work a set number of hours per week at the agreed rate. Anything over and above that is overtime, be it voluntary or guaranteed within a local rostering agreement, regardless of the hourly rate.

 

[FordFocus]

Yet another thread about bloody driver shortages .. I love how TPE have spun that press release..

Before we explain the current issue we're facing, it's important to explain what a 'rest day working agreement' is. In a nutshell, a ‘rest day working agreement’ is an opportunity for train drivers to increase their salary by working overtime. Drivers can do this by covering services that are unstaffed - these services might be unstaffed due to any number of reasons, many of which are often sudden or happen with short-notice. Choosing to work on a rest day is a completely voluntary choice for a driver. Indeed, these agreements are common within the rail industry and we have used these for a number of years.

As someone on the actual coal face, a Rest Day Working agreement is more beneficial to the company than the staff. It simply saves the TOC money on recruitment, training, salary, pension and other costs. RDW can be highly flexible for the TOC, no real rostering principles, no spare movements and is done on an as required basis. If services are constantly been cancelled because of staffing shortages it's the fault of the company for not employing enough staff.

Two years ago, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen(ASLEF), the train driver union, withdrew its rest day working agreement over a dispute regarding the introduction of a four-day working week for drivers. It was agreed that an independent person would look into the feasibility of introducing a four-day working week for drivers, provided there was no impact on resource costs to our business. Rest day working was reintroduced in an agreement that saw drivers paid up-front in recognition that it remained in place through to October 2016.

The review has now finished and concluded that a four-day week cannot be implemented without significant resource costs to our business. Unfortunately, ASLEF’s Executive Committee has refused to accept the conclusions of this review and have now withdrawn rest day working and will not enter any further discussions on the matter.

ASLEF has walked away from a long-term agreement that was due to expire in October 2016 and, at this stage, we do not expect to regain this before the end of our franchise as they have stated they are not willing to discuss this matter any further.

Rest Day Working sanctions can be cancelled by either party at anytime, normally when the TOC is in breach of it when they've not agreed to recruitment plans etc...

What catches my eye in the above quotes is that ASLEF are in dispute about T&Cs, they withdrew RDW to get TPE around the table, TPE realise they rely too much on it so enter into discussions with ASLEF and agree on a date which ironically is around the same time that the TPE direct award franchise expires. So it sounds to me the company will go along with this "independent review" to keep ASLEF happy while TPE save money with RDW.. What seems to have bitten TPE in the arse is this independent review has finished much earlier than October 2016 so the union has cancelled the RDW agreement and it's back to square one.

Presumably a sticking point of anything T&C related is the franchise finishes next year and the DfT would have to approve anything to protect the next franchisee.

Fixed 4 day week exist on ex-FNW drivers (probably negotiated by people who then went to FTPE) and other TOCs and work okay. Don't see a problem with it, you still work the same amount of hours each week.

 

[Class 170101]

Doesn't say much about the integrity of ASLEF in that they have NOT accepted the view of the independent person and have walked away from the agreement.

 

[455driver]

Doesn't say much about the integrity of ASLEF in that they have NOT accepted the view of the independent person and have walked away from the agreement.

It all depends how independent the independent person is and what their remit actually entailed!

 

[FordFocus]

I'm curious to who this independent person or company are. There are a few ways of doing things on a cost neutral basis. TPE Drivers may want a 4 day week, in return for the company changing spare movement or removal of booking off time for example.

 

[HH]

As I said earlier, they weren't on a 5 day week last time I looked, somewhere between 4 and 5. I'm guessing from the diagram lengths that it would have some impact, but I agree with FordFocus - I feel that a deal could be done that would satisfy both parties. If I couldn't broker a deal in these circumstances I would be very disappointed indeed.

Maybe there's an issue between TPE and DfT that's driving this.

 

[Carlisle]

one can work as many hours as they like, either paid or unpaid, and the recognition they get for it will be somewhere between virtually none and absolutely none

Sadly that's one of most accurate statements I've seen on this forum yet (despite all those staff satisfaction surveys that seem popular these days and supposed advances in HR management )

 

[tony6499]

What a lot of people forget is that even if there is a RDW agreement between ASLEF and the TOC it doesn't mean anything if no drivers actually volunteer to work overtime and when there wasn't a RDW agreement in place at certain TOCs it didn't stop drivers working overtime.

 

[HH]

What a lot of people forget is that even if there is a RDW agreement between ASLEF and the TOC it doesn't mean anything if no drivers actually volunteer to work overtime and when there wasn't a RDW agreement in place at certain TOCs it didn't stop drivers working overtime.

Very true. The wishes of ASLEF and the wishes of their members do not always coincide...