Southern DOO: ASLEF members vote 79.1% for revised deal

[JamesTT]

Relatively low cost, even if one cancelled train does lead to a delay of more than 30 minutes, which won't always be the case.

Just wondering if they are referring to those costs. Plus if a delay or cancellation on a Southern train leads to a passenger missing a service elsewhere operated by another TOC. Doesn't Southern foot the bill

 

[Anvil1984]

The only reference to overtime in the letter is a hand written bit at the top. The letter itself only refers to Guards swapping booking sundays off etc.

The hand written bit says :- No RDW for a/r only for no cover. Which means they will give out overtime to cover open turns but not to bring someone in on the off chance they may be needed.

Care to read it again it says NO RDW AR ONLY FOR NO COVER which means something different

 

[74A]

Care to read it again it says NO RDW AR ONLY FOR NO COVER which means something different

Reads as :-

NO RDW AR (AR means As Required so you are there to cover for short term sickness etc but may not actually do anything. They will not pay RDW for this )

ONLY FOR NO COVER . (So Rest day work will be given for open turns)

Of course this is English we are talking about so often sentences can be read in two ways but that is the way I read it.

 

[ComUtoR]

Is A/R like Drivers SP turns ?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Of course this is English we are talking about so often sentences can be read in two ways but that is the way I read it.

If you shift the invisible comma you read it differently. Makes perfect sense to railway employee. I think a bias makes you read what you want to see.

 

[74A]

If it were a ban on RDW full stop why does it have the bit after No RDW. It must mean something different otherwise it wouldn't be there.

Of course if companies are paying RDW for a/r then it must mean they don't really have enough staff anyway but I think we know that. And if they are reducing the number of guards they are not going to employ any new ones in the next few weeks so I suspect this will continue until the proposed change to more DOO in late July early August.

The court case with ASLEF on the 27 June will really decide what is going to happen.

 

[Sprinter153]

Of course if companies are paying RDW for a/r...

It does happen!
I got offered 16 hours and a taxi home recently (not at my request!) for covering part of a standby turn as having it uncovered affects the roster clerk's KPIs!

 

[ComUtoR]

Of course if companies are paying RDW for a/r then it must mean they don't really have enough staff anyway but I think we know that

.

Errrrrr thats kinda the point isn't it. Rest Day working is used as a means of keeping the workforce as low as possible to save on staff costs. Its cheaper to use overtime than pay for more staff. A ban on rest day working means that you no longer have sufficient levels of staffing. The company is 100% to blame for lack of staff.

If it were a ban on RDW full stop why does it have the bit after No RDW. It must mean something different otherwise it wouldn't be there.

The problem is when reading it you are not seeing the technical terms or how the railway operates its roster. You are looking at it from purely as a grammatical sentence.

It's (as I read it)

No rest day working. (ban on rest days) NO RDW

A/R turns are only to be used to cover booked diagrams. AR ONLY FOR NO COVER

That is to say that if a turn is uncovered then they should used the booked A/R turns to cover the work and that they must not use the booked A/R turns to cover anything else (annual leave requests)

The rostering system uses booked A/R turns so that it can provide flexibility to cover things like sickness, leave, uncovered turns, training, briefing, refreshers, medicals etc. So a typical week can look like.

Sun - Duty# - 1234 - (12:30-21:30)
Mon - RD
Tue - RD
Wed - Duty# - 4321 (13:30-22:00)
Thurs - A/R - (14:15-20:00)
Friday A/R - (14:15-20:00)
Saturday - Duty# - 9876 - (13:28-22:03)

On the master roster its fixed but on a week to week or even day by day basis the A/R can be moved to a duty that is uncovered they may be able to move the times or may not as it depends on conditions. Ours is a 3hr movement either side of the datum time.

So what they are doing is simply rostering A/R for uncovered work but nothing else. In this case, its annual leave being refused.

 

[bramling]

Is A/R like Drivers SP turns ?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---


If you shift the invisible comma you read it differently. Makes perfect sense to railway employee. I think a bias makes you read what you want to see.

If it's anything like my location works, RDW wouldn't normally be used to cover spare turns - they are normally just left uncovered.

So I'd read it as uncovered duties are to be covered by spares only, with no RDW to be authorised.

Needless to say the passenger suffers as a result of this if running duties can't be covered when someone would otherwise have been happy to work their rest day.

 

[tony6499]

Reads as :-

NO RDW AR (AR means As Required so you are there to cover for short term sickness etc but may not actually do anything. They will not pay RDW for this )

ONLY FOR NO COVER . (So Rest day work will be given for open turns)

Of course this is English we are talking about so often sentences can be read in two ways but that is the way I read it.

Wrong, it is written and meant to be read No Rest Day Working As Required only for No Cover
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---
Southern have never used rest day working to bring in spare or A/R for Conductors, not even in times of massive disruption

 

[Number5]

Are conductors actually willing to work overtime in the current climate? :-?

 

[adc82140]

The RMT were doing so well with the dossier & press release from Mick Cash until the last paragraph- factual, without emotion or hyperbole and to the point. It was just what was needed up until then....

“Only a fool, or someone motivated solely by the bottom line on a company balance sheet, would contemplate tampering with our guards on Britain’s crowded and stretched railways.

and now that's spoiled the lot- they just couldn't help themselves could they?


Standard disclaimer- I'm a passenger not rail staff or any related industry.

 

[455driver]

With the quality that some of their press releases I almost don't blame them for not publishing it! It might actually do more harm than good to get them to a wider audience!

Don't you think it's odd that the press will print the 'normal' RMT class warfare/foreign railway offerings but not one that explains their/staffs side of the dispute?

Free press my arris.

 

[sarahj]

The only reference to overtime in the letter is a hand written bit at the top. The letter itself only refers to Guards swapping booking sundays off etc.

The hand written bit says :- No RDW for a/r only for no cover. Which means they will give out overtime to cover open turns but not to bring someone in on the off chance they may be needed.

You have added a 'for'.

No RDW. A/R only for no cover.

 

[skyhigh]

As seen on the BBC today:

Britain's biggest rail franchise in chaos

16 June 2016

"I'm six months pregnant. At least once a week it will take three or four hours just to get home."
"Haywards Heath is a prime location for turfing you off the train and leaving you stranded with hundreds of people."
"My work is suffering. It has taken me an average of three hours to get home every night last week. It should take an hour and 10 minutes".

With hundreds of cancellations every day, for months, passengers on board Southern trains are at the end of their tether. The company is currently cancelling five times more trains than the operator with the next worst record.

Bearing the brunt of the mayhem are people using the line linking London to Brighton, which is already one of the most congested routes in Britain. I have heard about people going part-time or giving up work altogether because the trains are so bad. I have also been told of one father who was in tears last week because once again he would not be home in time to put his children to bed.

Those passengers are stuck in the middle of a venomous industrial dispute over whether the conductor or the driver shuts the doors on their trains.
That may not sound like the kind of issue to bring a railway to its knees, but there is more to it than that.

Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), the company that runs Southern, wants drivers, rather than conductors, to shut the train doors at each station.
It says driver-only operation (DOO) is perfectly safe as the driver can look at CCTV images in the cab to make sure everyone is clear of the doors. Some 40% of Southern trains are already DOO, and have been for two decades, GTR says. And no-one will lose their job, or any pay. In fact, the conductors will still be on the train, wandering up and down, checking the passengers are OK.

But the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (RMT) says it is a Trojan-horse policy to cut staff in future. It says passengers' lives will be at risk if the changes are made, and has just released a dossier of examples of times when conductors have rescued passengers in emergencies or provided security, especially for women travelling alone.

In an unprecedented move, GTR released the figures to prove a point. GTR said train conductors had called in sick more than 1,000 times in a month. It said that since the first strike, last April, the number of guards taking time off had doubled. That is one in six taking a sick day in the past couple of months. The Rail Minister Claire Perry has waded in, telling the BBC that it amounts to unofficial action, staff effectively "working to rule", which she says is "outrageous and unfair".

The RMT is rubbishing her claims and says it has examples of the company cancelling trains even when staff are available. This is something GTR denies, saying it pays a financial penalty for every cancellation so why would it bother.

Another major issue is drivers working less overtime on their rest days. You can see how nasty it is all getting. Most drivers on the line belong to the Aslef union, so they are not currently going on strike. I spoke to one who did not want to give his name, "I've never known an atmosphere like it," he said. "It is ugly." He told me there was "a real issue about safety", but added: "Both sides have gone too far on certain things."

Nigel Harris, at Rail Magazine, said: "The stakes are high for both sides.
"If the RMT loses this, it opens the door to more flexible working on other routes, which government would like because of the lower costs.
"The impact on the RMT is that it would lose a lot of power to win disputes in the future." Private Eye magazine suggests the government is in the background, "orchestrating" the row to push through what it would call modernisation, and what the unions would call staff cuts to make a bigger profit.

The RMT has also called six strikes across Scotland over the same DOO issue, and it is likely to come up on future franchises too. Unfortunately, it raises the spectre of more disputes on more lines across Britain.

Last February, a senior Department for Transport official called Peter Wilkinson told a meeting in Croydon to prepare for "punch-ups" with drivers who refused to change their working hours. According to the Croydon Advertiser, he said they still got the same "fire break" rest stops they did when the trains ran on coal, adding: "They [drivers] will have to decide if they want to give a good service or get the hell out of my industry." He later apologised.

Some fear a war is brewing on the railways, and your £4,000 season ticket will not offer you much protection. Back on Southern, a third strike has been called by the RMT union for next Tuesday. Frankly, there seems little chance of it being called off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36539137

 

[JamesTT]

From what I have heard about the RMT's 7 point plan there is no way GTR were ever going to take the proposals into consideration

 

[Bellbell]

We are never given RDW to cover spare turns, they would always just disappear from the roster. This goes for both drivers and guards. However, I do know of one TOC (or at least one depot) where they can get RDW for spare turns, so guess it depends on how southern normally operate it. I read it as other rail staff read it though, no rdw; ar only for no cover.

 

[ComUtoR]

We are never given RDW to cover spare turns, they would always just disappear from the roster. This goes for both drivers and guards.

Whilst we don't get RDW for SP turns we do get RDW for Cover turns. Hence my question regarding A/R Vs SP turns.

IF the A/R turns are like our cover then GTR are seriously in the wrong. The moral argument aside it would be an operational issue as there is no cover for service disruption and GTR would be deliberately ruining the service.

 

[tony6499]

On Southern a guard cover turn is a booked duty so would be covered by rest day working but over the years Southern have reduced and some depots taken away cover turns entirely

 

[theironroad]

Whilst we don't get RDW for SP turns we do get RDW for Cover turns. Hence my question regarding A/R Vs SP turns.

IF the A/R turns are like our cover then GTR are seriously in the wrong. The moral argument aside it would be an operational issue as there is no cover for service disruption and GTR would be deliberately ruining the service.

not sure if we're same toc, but same for us. 50x cover turns should be covered either by moving an ao spare to cover or rdw for cover, as cover is a running turn and cro are meant to to their utmost to cover running turns.

 

[JamesTT]

RMTs Seven point plan was ridiculous. They should have accepted DOO on the BML but considering West Coast, East Coast and Arun Valley are not equiped for DOO(P) operation should have said DOO on these routes was not acceptable. They should have negotiated that the OBS staff were classed as safety critical with full PTS, stock and GSMR training so they could assist to some extent in an emergency

 

[Carlisle]

West Coast, East Coast and Arun Valley are not equiped for DOO(P) operation should have said DOO on these routes was not acceptable.

How's that really any different or more flexible than the current system, if Southern were going to agree to something similar to what you suggest they'd more than likely not have proposed any changes In the first place and avoided this malor fall out altogether

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

How's that really any different or more flexible than the current system, if Southern were going to agree to something similar to what you suggest they'd more than likely not have proposed any changes In the first place and avoided this malor fall out altogether

Being somewhat an avid student of acronyms of all varieties, malor stands for mortar and artillery locating radar, so I sincerely hope that matters have not passed the stage of verbal nastiness into a matter of outright warfare.

 

[Haywain]

Don't you think it's odd that the press will print the 'normal' RMT class warfare/foreign railway offerings but not one that explains their/staffs side of the dispute?

Free press my arris.

We do have a free press. However, it is a free press with a (largely) right wing agenda. Including the most popular newspaper in the country.

You have added a 'for'.

No RDW. A/R only for no cover.

And you have added a full stop.

 

[craigybagel]

RMTs Seven point plan was ridiculous. They should have accepted DOO on the BML but considering West Coast, East Coast and Arun Valley are not equiped for DOO(P) operation should have said DOO on these routes was not acceptable. They should have negotiated that the OBS staff were classed as safety critical with full PTS, stock and GSMR training so they could assist to some extent in an emergency

Care to share the seven point plan with us so we can judge for ourselves?

 

[ComUtoR]

And you have added a full stop.

Yes she did. Funny thing. She is correct. 74A is not.

 

[DarloRich]

RMTs Seven point plan was ridiculous. They should have accepted DOO on the BML but considering West Coast, East Coast and Arun Valley are not equiped for DOO(P) operation should have said DOO on these routes was not acceptable. They should have negotiated that the OBS staff were classed as safety critical with full PTS, stock and GSMR training so they could assist to some extent in an emergency

Where is this 7 point plan publicised? Interesting that you know all about it and what should, or should not, be "negotiated"

I will venture you have never been involved in anything like these kind of discussions and your trusting naivety shows through once again. You seem to think one or both sides come to the table with clean hands and a willingness to talk. There is no way GTR would negotiate at all on DOO and they certainly wont want to keep the OBS role as safety critical.

That defeats their whole business case for moving to one man operations. I suspect it will be built on the savings made from the wastage in guards roles, the change in T&C and the subsequent shrinking and eventual removal of the OBS role.

 

[Bellbell]

Whilst we don't get RDW for SP turns we do get RDW for Cover turns. Hence my question regarding A/R Vs SP turns.

IF the A/R turns are like our cover then GTR are seriously in the wrong. The moral argument aside it would be an operational issue as there is no cover for service disruption and GTR would be deliberately ruining the service.

That's interesting, we only have SP turns, nothing else. What's the difference at your place? Do you have to stay to the end of a cover turn but can go home early off a spare? We've never had anything but SP turns since I've worked for my TOC although I think some of the other depots have something approaching what I think a cover turn might be (for drivers only) but I'm not sure about whether they cover that or not with RDW.

To keep this on topic, if southern have always previously done something one way (RDW for these turns) then yes, it's clearly a performance risk to start changing that, or why would they have previously authorised RDW for them. Naughty. And deliberately sabotaging their own services.

 

[XDM]

It does happen!
I got offered 16 hours and a taxi home recently (not at my request!) for covering part of a standby turn as having it uncovered affects the roster clerk's KPIs!

So that non rail readers can understand what goes on,if there is no spare to move a train say into a siding,a manager has to find drivers in the mess room who are allocated to other work but just sitting in the room & ask them to spend 15 mins to move the train. A negotiation goes on,with drivers saying no,or OK I'll do it for 4 hours overtime. Guards the same. That is why despite a 35 hour week the stats show drivers doing,say 42 hours a week,although only on the premises for 35 hours. It is dispiriting for managers to have to beg staff to cover for drivers/guards who have gone sick during the job or more likely are unavailable due to disruption,such as Paddington yesterday.
Now stand back & await the response from the usual suspects to a hidden truth that adds greatly to railway costs & limits flexibility. The poster who prompted this expects 16 hours pay to cover a few hours of an uncovered duty.

 

[ComUtoR]

That's interesting, we only have SP turns, nothing else. What's the difference at your place?

Both are booked on the master roster but "Cover" is considered a diagram and "Spare" is for rostering flexibility.

The Cover turn runs daily and is used to cover the service should there be any disruption of any kind. That is; if someone if late on shift, needs to book off early, rings in sick, or has an incident. Service disruption is also covered and you are expected to be ready at the end of the phone should you be required to go cover disruption. All depots have Cover turns so that all routes are covered should the service go up the wall. The Cover turn has a fixed starting time just like any other diagram.

If the A/R turns work like Cover then the service is clearly at risk and any disruption cant be recovered and neither can any staff side issues. On occasion our Cover turn goes uncovered and thankfully we have overlap with other depots but it does go horribly wrong and no cover man means that nobody is there to help out and the service suffers.

The SP turns are more to do with rostering flexibility and are used on a week to week basis to cover the operational running of the depots and service. If I'm rostered 15:00 SP then I can expect to be moved +/- 3hrs to any diagram. So me old mate Bill wants a leave day then they will rebook me to his turn (if it falls within the movement window) We are rarely Spare as you have to cover leave, sickness, training, briefing, assessments etc. etc. For example, this week there are 4 Drivers booked on a traction course so their work needs to be covered. Rosters will rebook the SP turns to cover it. SP turns have been mentioned before on this forum.

If A/R turns are like SP's then what is happening is that the A/R is correctly being used to cover the uncovered diagrams but not used for Guard's leave etc. The problem with that is that because TOC's run understaffed RDW is required to cover the work and that the A/R % isn't sufficient. So the ban on RDW leads to cancelled diagrams. Because they cancel leave there is higher availability of staff so RDW can be reduced. They can also reduce RDW because they cut back on training, staff briefs etc so they can keep staff availability. In the long term its an operational nightmare as they still need to do it. It's just been deferred.

I can understand the shift away from cover turns because you increase the number of SP turns which will increase rostering flexibility but you lose your flexibility to react to the service disruption. Management see Cover turns as wasted money as you can, and often do, sit about all day doing nothing but watch telly. You need to increase SP turns to be sufficient to cover operational needs and still have a couple of people sitting spare for service recovery.

Without people sitting about either "spare" or "cover" then service recovery is almost impossible. It just takes a single person ringing in sick and you get a whole diagram uncovered and the knock on effect can be severe. This refusal by TOC's to keep staffing levels high and refusing to have people sitting around just in case is why the service crumbles at the slightest nudge.

To keep this on topic, if southern have always previously done something one way (RDW for these turns) then yes, it's clearly a performance risk to start changing that, or why would they have previously authorised RDW for them. Naughty. And deliberately sabotaging their own services.

Yes, they are doing it to spite the staff but the service is suffering because of it. What they want with the new OBS role is that you will never need a spare/cover/A/R turn again and that an OBS will never have an effect on the service again. They simply run the trains without them. Business wise its a good move but the impact means that a few hundred people lose their jobs either in the short term or the long. Also it removes any employment opportunity in the future if the OBS role ceases to exist.

Economically speaking, should jobs be created or destroyed ? Does a TOC have a responsibility to provide local employment ? I see the problems with the steel industry and the imminent arrival of our robot overlords. It is certainly a question I've been asking myself recently. With no Guard has come less platform staff. DOO has destroyed jobs and irrespective of safety and the DOO arguments etc Morally, I'm unsure of the TOC's role and responsibilities any more.

 

[Tetchytyke]

They should have negotiated that the OBS staff were classed as safety critical with full PTS, stock and GSMR training so they could assist to some extent in an emergency

Oh for goodness' sake, they did. GTR told them to p!ss off.

If they're safety-critical then the train can't move without them. The whole point of OBS is that the train can move without them.

I still can't decide if you're being naive or disingenuous, but the more you post the more I believe you're being the latter.

I'll repeat here what I said on the other thread:

There was a very interesting letter posted to a well-known social media website a few days ago. This was written by Piero McCarthy (Head of Conductors at GTR) making it clear that all rest-day working was to be banned for everyone, not just those who undertook strike action. It is clear that GTR chose to not have cover for their rotas, and it isn't the RMT staff refusing to work their rest days.

I can't help but wonder why GTR's senior management would take such a step if they had no intention of deliberately causing these issues for PR purposes.

Interestingly, back on my subject of GTR management being repeated failures, it's interesting to note that Mr McCarthy lasted a whopping five months as Head of Revenue Protection at Northern (i.e. he's the guy who issued all the dodgy £80 Penalty Fakes) before moving on for seven months as Head of Customer Services at GTR (i.e. he's the guy who rejected all our Delay Repay claims). Sounds like a successful individual, easily as talented as Charles Horton, and well worth his salary.