Southern DOO: ASLEF members vote 79.1% for revised deal

[Carlisle]

Are you suggesting such a high percentage of drivers voted to give up pay at Christmas because they're bored?!

No I said the leadership is bored with being a moderate union and has clearly been seduced in recent times by the RMT style radicalism, amongst other things

 

[craigybagel]

No I said the leadership is bored with being a moderate union and has clearly been seduced in recent times by the RMT style radicalism, amongst other things

But drivers make up the union, and drivers are the ones who have voted to take the "radical" action of striking over an issue they're not happy with.

 

[AlterEgo]

But drivers make up the union, and drivers are the ones who have voted to take the "radical" action of striking over an issue they're not happy with.

The members don't necessarily make up the union, or else you'd have us believe all RMT members are raving Trots. They aren't, and a good many of them are really disappointed by how unimaginative the leadership have been with the current dispute.

 

[ivanhoe]

How do both ASLEF and RMT members see this current dispute panning out? I understand the issues at stake but I can't help thinking that the role of the Guard is coming to an end on Southern, where applicable. From a union perspective, the RMT position appears to be dependant on the Drivers(ASLEF) supporting the safety concerns put forward in respect of the role of the Guard. Please correct me if I have misunderstood the current position.

 

[Matt Taylor]

The RMT are not going to win this, and as a paying member I'm very disappointed in how they have put their case across. Using rhetoric from the 1970s makes them come across as an archaic organisation resistant to change. Compare the language used by the RMT to the way that UNISON have presented themselves in a recent advertising campaign and you'll see where they're going wrong. The Government has an agenda and it is quite probably a direct result of the regular walkouts on the underground, unfortunately the employees at Southern are paying the price of previous disputes.

The RMT are not going to win and when they lose they need to have a good hard look at themselves and consider a new approach before the next big battle.

 

[Astradyne]

I read a report the other day that 99% of Southern Guards have signed the new OBS contract?

Is it really the case that they don't believe in their stance that much, they are not prepared to stand by their cause, and acted in self-interest to make sure they protect their employment status whilst ruining that of their passengers. Hypocrites if this is the case.

 

[highdyke]

I read all but one had signed, no idea why that person didn't, perhaps had the skills to go somewhere else?

With this is mind, I dare say what will happen in the near future is the drivers will all be fired and like the Guards be given the option of a new contract. Again, 99% will sign because they simple can't for the most part, earn that sort of wage elsewhere. The Government wins, they will have learnt a lot of lessons this time round, next time it will be much quicker and cleaner.

If the RMT are smart (which they aren't) they could help save jobs through productivity deals and a bit of imagination. Instead they are too busy paying £92,000 to Labour under Mr Corbyn, and pledged £25,000 to his battle against Owen Smith for the party leadership.

 

[Astradyne]

I read all but one had signed, no idea why that person didn't, perhaps had the skills to go somewhere else?

With this is mind, I dare say what will happen in the near future is the drivers will all be fired and like the Guards be given the option of a new contract. Again, 99% will sign because they simple can't for the most part, earn that sort of wage elsewhere. The Government wins, they will have learnt a lot of lessons this time round, next time it will be much quicker and cleaner.

If the RMT are smart (which they aren't) they could help save jobs through productivity deals and a bit of imagination. Instead they are too busy paying £92,000 to Labour under Mr Corbyn, and pledged £25,000 to his battle against Owen Smith for the party leadership.

Do drivers need to sign a new contract. Are there currently different contracts for DOO drivers ... or a standard drivers contract?

 

[king_walnut]

How do both ASLEF and RMT members see this current dispute panning out?

Most conductors become OBS from 1st January, presumably at this time the remaining routes will be singed off for DOO aswell. People will come to work and work under the new rules, and Southern will go to court to block future strike action based on the fact that they're already doing the job (like what happened with GX earlier in the year). When the industrial action is stopped, the company will bolster its staff numbers. There's already new OBS coming through, I've had a couple shadow me over the past few weeks. And there's a big recruitment on drivers early in the new year too.

I imagine this will all be put to bed by the end of January.

I'll quote this post when it turns out I'm right.

 

[tsr]

The figures about conductors signing OBS contracts do not take into account those will go on to take voluntary severance (a not inconsiderable proportion) and those who are staying in the role and thus were not offered OBS contracts (not too far under half of the conductors).

A cumulative equivalent of several depots' worth of conductors will still need to be retained in their current roles in order to be able to operate the doors on stock which requires it, or on routes where there is unlikely to be agreement amongst all parties to go DOO(P). To be fair, though, I would not be surprised if these numbers dropped in the future.

A significant number of the conductors who I have spoken to who were eligible for the OBS role state that they felt they had no choice in order to secure a job for roughly the next few years, and were effectively forced into it until they can seek something else. Some have suggested (I can't confirm it; I don't think anyone would be able to!) that many contracts had statements to this effect added by them. And almost every single conductor I have spoken to, retained in either conductor or OBS roles, would appear to be actively looking at recruitment sites, as well as many others.

I will not be drawn into explicitly commenting about what this says about staff morale, potential staffing levels, and turnover. What I would point out is that any member of the public could poll conductors for their opinions and views, and I would be surprised if they did not come away with a similar picture.

The upshot is that conductors are not hypocritical, but are protecting their livelihoods in the best way they can, until such time as other opportunities might become available. I can assure you that it will be hard to go about finding a conductor who wants a new role which is less essential to train operation, or with less training, or with no authority to control movements in the interests of safety and security.

 

[Astradyne]

Most conductors become OBS from 1st January, presumably at this time the remaining routes will be singed off for DOO aswell. People will come to work and work under the new rules, and Southern will go to court to block future strike action based on the fact that they're already doing the job (like what happened with GX earlier in the year). When the industrial action is stopped, the company will bolster its staff numbers. There's already new OBS coming through, I've had a couple shadow me over the past few weeks. And there's a big recruitment on drivers early in the new year too.

I imagine this will all be put to bed by the end of January.

I'll quote this post when it turns out I'm right.

You maybe surprised to hear this, but there was an opportunity to negotiate away some of the arcahic methods of DOO dispatch .... but that chance will be lost, so regret this lost opportunity.

 

[king_walnut]

You maybe surprised to hear this, but there was an opportunity to negotiate away some of the arcahic methods of DOO dispatch .... but that chance will be lost, so regret this lost opportunity.

I have no idea what relevance that has to my post.

 

[Astradyne]

I have no idea what relevance that has to my post.

Sorry it is probably more from a drivers prospective .... maybe ASLEF should have negotiated earlier for a better deal.

A year ago ... they could have argued that the mirror dispatch highlighted on this forum as inadequate, needed to be updated on all Southern stations, one thing they could then dictate on future DOO conversions ... they did not ... so now have lost the opportunity

 

[Carlisle]

The RMT are not going to win this, and as a paying member I'm very disappointed in how they have put their case across. Using rhetoric from the 1970s makes them come across as an archaic organisation resistant to change. Compare the language used by the RMT to the way that UNISON have presented themselves in a recent advertising campaign and you'll see where they're going wrong. The Government has an agenda and it is quite probably a direct result of the regular walkouts on the underground, unfortunately the employees at Southern are paying the price of previous disputes.

The RMT are not going to win and when they lose they need to have a good hard look at themselves and consider a new approach before the next big battle.

RMT actually seemed to be acting in a fairly measured way early on in the Southern dispute but gaining the Scotrail deal seemed to bolster a belief that they only need strike for long enough and victory would almost certainly come

 

[Andrew32]

A neutrals point of view on the current southern situation

https://medium.com/@xciv/southern-r...y-misleads-passengers-1371dd775ab0#.xtaink4hu

 

[highdyke]

RMT actually seemed to be acting in a fairly measured way early on in the Southern dispute but gaining the Scotrail deal seemed to bolster a belief that they only need strike for long enough and victory would almost certainly come

They got lucky with a useless transport minister, who got done for driving without insurance recently and admitted "I'm not a transport expert".

 

[Astradyne]

Deleted ... too emotional .... but this quote from bbc just sums it up.

Passengers have suffered months of disruption in the dispute, which is about whose job it should be to open and close the train doors

Petty really!

 

[highdyke]

A neutrals point of view on the current southern situation

https://medium.com/@xciv/southern-r...y-misleads-passengers-1371dd775ab0#.xtaink4hu

It's okay for an amateur, but on things like safety incidents, you have to look at the overall risk profiles and normalise the data to draw any sort of conclusion.

There's some good points on the disabled, but really for all TOCs there was never a truly walk on service, the national rail site advises that you should book 24 hours in advance everywhere.

http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/stations_destinations/disabled_passengers.aspx

Some of the Southern handling has been crap, the let's strike back thing in particular. To encourage people to strike back at your own staff beggars belief. When people make jokes about Southern they mean the company as a whole, they are not actually separating staff from management.

Anyway, I think this sums it up best.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38287571

 

[philthetube]

Really, so why don't employees do as they are bloody told then? The democratically elected government doesn't believe in nationalisation. What gives you the right to try and force the issue?

Lets imagine you are a lollypop man, you are told to move your crossing position to a place which you consider unsafe to operate from, maybe near a bend, you also know that you may be imprisoned if one of your charges get injured, this is a political decision because the crossing has been moved to cover 2 schools and the other person dismissed, do you have the right to strike?

And before you respond that others consider DOO safe bear in mind that the council sacking that member of staff would also say that what they were proposing was safe.

 

[AlterEgo]

Lets imagine you are a lollypop man, you are told to move your crossing position to a place which you consider unsafe to operate from, maybe near a bend, you also know that you may be imprisoned if one of your charges get injured, this is a political decision because the crossing has been moved to cover 2 schools and the other person dismissed, do you have the right to strike?

And before you respond that others consider DOO safe bear in mind that the council sacking that member of staff would also say that what they were proposing was safe.

That's not really a fair comparison. It would be fair if the chances of someone getting hit by a car there were several tens of millions to one, and that you weren't actually moving the bend but taking over the duties from someone else who was paid less and who was in a different union.

(For completeness, you'd be taking over this role after lots of dispute where eventually you accept the responsibilities but cut a decent pay deal over it, same as always!)

 

[Barn]

For a different tack, what compromises could be considered to resolve this without either side losing face?

- More platform staff at peak time at busy stations?
- Agreement to use DOO if a driver switches to a Class 700 (or a newer Electrostar?) but maintaining guards on older Class 377 units?

 

[dgl]

All these (admittedly few) people who claim 'DOO IS SAFE' will soon change their mind when people start to be killed because the driver can't see that there are people close to the train when it sets off and they fall between the train and the platform, there's an accident and you have to be left on the train alone because the driver has to walk to a signal as the GSM-R has failed, or the delays that are sure to happen during the all to frequent weather conditions that make the DOO equipment useless.

You will then get the problem that these delays will be seen by management as 'unofficial industrial action' rather than safety related and the drivers will be bullied into reducing these delays, thus reducing the safety of the train and causing more accidents.

The government will just claim it's the drivers fault and prosecute appropriately whilst safety gets reduced further. At the end of the day if people think that unavoidable mistakes could lead to them being jailed you are not going to get the best people for the job as they will just go elsewhere, would you rather work for SWT with guards on every train and better management relations or GTR with no guards and bad management relations? I know which one I would pick.

 

[infobleep]

I read a report the other day that 99% of Southern Guards have signed the new OBS contract?

Is it really the case that they don't believe in their stance that much, they are not prepared to stand by their cause, and acted in self-interest to make sure they protect their employment status whilst ruining that of their passengers. Hypocrites if this is the case.

I'd heard that lawyers advised them to sign the contracts under duress. I'm not a lawyer so I can't advise you on the implications of them doing so.

If you wish to find out, as I'm sure you do, seeing as I doubt you know this, you'll need to ask a lawyer or do a search on the Internet.

Sent from my SM-G925F using Tapatalk

 

[AlterEgo]

All these (admittedly few) people who claim 'DOO IS SAFE' will soon change their mind when people start to be killed because the driver can't see that there are people close to the train when it sets off and they fall between the train and the platform, there's an accident and you have to be left on the train alone because the driver has to walk to a signal as the GSM-R has failed, or the delays that are sure to happen during the all to frequent weather conditions that make the DOO equipment useless.

This is just silly. It's almost like some No DOO campaigners wouldn't really mind a fatal accident just to prove their point. Stop it.

On the flip side, perhaps people who support DOO might be wishing for a jolly nice ding ding and away accident (which btw, doesn't result in the loss of one life, but sometimes many).

There is very little acknowledgement of the inherent dangers involved in splitting (not sharing, like on airliners) the safety critical workload down the middle. A good example of that kind of thing is illustrated here.

 

[EssexGonzo]

All these (admittedly few) people who claim 'DOO IS SAFE' will soon change their mind when people start to be killed because the driver can't see that there are people close to the train when it sets off and they fall between the train and the platform, there's an accident and you have to be left on the train alone because the driver has to walk to a signal as the GSM-R has failed, or the delays that are sure to happen during the all to frequent weather conditions that make the DOO equipment useless.

.

But the apocalyptic picture you paint ISN'T HAPPENING NOW on existing DOO routes. No-one has died in the evil doors because they've been poorly operated by an incompetent door closer or mis-represented in 1970s TV pictures.

I also can't remember any local cases of carriages full of feral and fearful passengers left quivering and fighting on their own in a train. In a 12-coach train with no passage between the sets, I fail to see how a second staff member could help two thirds of the train anyway - who would surely be left to a slow, painful and unnecessary death in the other two sets - and all because the wrong person closed the doors.

And as for the GSM failing? Hang-on, I wonder if any of the hundreds of passengers behind me have one.....?

 

[thejuggler]

The ASLEF leader has just been on R4. If I was in a Union headed by him I would stop paying my subs. He was useless when asked what is so wrong with DOO as there are plenty of trains which operate with just a driver and has been deemed safe.

He was unable to give a concise answer, I suspect the garbled answer about rail safety he did give was a long way from the truth and that is shameful.

 

[Astradyne]

So we have ASLEF telling their Thamelink drivers of 12 car DDO trains to work normally, and those Southern drivers on the same lines to refuse and strike .... you can not believe it ... sounds more like something from a sitcom than real life .... but ASLEF your actions are not part of a comedy ... they are affecting very real lives.

 

[Carlisle]

For a different tack, what compromises could be considered to resolve this
- Agreement to use DOO if a driver switches to a Class 700 (or a newer Electrostar?) but maintaining guards on older Class 377 units?

Southern aren't getting any class 700s and most newer Electrostars already operate mostly on the long established entirely DOO metro routes anyway, maybe an agreement could be reached to upgrade the class 377 cctv system

 

[GadgetMan]

So we have ASLEF telling their Thamelink drivers of 12 car DDO trains to work normally, and those Southern drivers on the same lines to refuse and strike .... you can not believe it ... sounds more like something from a sitcom than real life .... but ASLEF your actions are not part of a comedy ... they are affecting very real lives.

So we have the RSSB rulebook dictating 2/3 of passenger trains can't run without a competent Guard onboard and setting out what compulsory actions the Guard must carry out in an emergency and during train dispatch. And then the same RSSB board says those compulsory Guards and the actions dedicated to Guards in an emergency suddenly aren't required in random geographical locations to cut costs/increase profits/beat the unions etc. I agree, it's unbelievable.

Guess what? They are affecting very real lives too, both passengers and staff.

 

[highdyke]

Lets imagine you are a lollypop man, you are told to move your crossing position to a place which you consider unsafe to operate from, maybe near a bend, you also know that you may be imprisoned if one of your charges get injured, this is a political decision because the crossing has been moved to cover 2 schools and the other person dismissed, do you have the right to strike?

And before you respond that others consider DOO safe bear in mind that the council sacking that member of staff would also say that what they were proposing was safe.

I don't have to imagine, with practical experience with DOO across quite a wide area of the network. and no vested interests as I've now left.


Why it's safe:

• It already happens: GWT, C2C, Chiltern, Southern, Scotrail and so on. The Underground has a form of it. Billions of people have been carried since it was first used in the early 80s, we have actual data. This is why RSBB and the ORR can conclude it's safe and prove it. It happens in other countries too.
  
• We have one of the safest railways in Europe
  
• The chances of anything happening is remote on passenger/train interface, very remote, not far off one in a BILLION. Even so, that has to be offset against risks splitting dispatch: Reaction times and so-called ding ding and away and you still get trap and drag. Anti-DOO people neatly side-step the death involving guard operation in Merseyside.
  
• GSMR/CSR is still better than the alternatives: SPTs, flags and dets. TCB (a prerequisite) is better than Absolute block.
  
• My experience tells me so: I've worked at many locations using it across a wide area of this country, never was there any concern again, nor were there mishaps. In fact, I stopped two major mishaps using the system because the trains involved had radio.
  
• Money is better put into other things that pose more of a hazard on the railway: Level crossings are one example, securing earthworks is another. Off the railway, there are countless better ways to save lives.