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Arriva Rail North DOO

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Dave1987

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Dave,

With the greatest respect, and acknowledging that you say these things quite sincerely, your continual ranting about 'hard working people who just want to have a decent job and get on with life' is wearing very thin, with me at least. It's beginning to sound far too much like the 'look at Me - Me - Me' that's all too common in this country nowadays.

Why on earth do you keep going on as if rail staff are so terribly hard done by ? Don't you think that many millions of other people living in this country also work hard and just want to have a decent job and get on with life ? Out here, in the real world, the rest of us non-rail staff have had to accept that jobs rarely exist for life, or even lengthy periods. We've also had to accept that we may need to change jobs from time to time, against our wishes. We've also recognised that we may need to move house, or gain more qualifications, or retrain to work in different industries. What makes the rail staff any different ? What is it that you feel all the rest of us should do so that rail staff can have job guarantees for, seemingly, ever and a day.

I don’t really care if my rhetoric is wearing thin with you. As with most of the right wingers on here I don’t think you will ever ‘get it’. It’s nothing to do with ‘me me me’. As much as it riles some on here I have a very well paid job that isn’t likely to disappear in my career time. But I’m not so narrow minded as to just see my own situation. I see what is happening in the country and it truly depresses me. To see our PM publicly supporting Uber and Deliveroo with their appalling employment practices. It’s very very easy to see what May’s Government wants for employment in the future. You talk about people gaining more qualifications blah blah blah but never explain who pays for these people to up-skill. These courses are NOT free. I know as a driver my opinion on this whole subject means nothing to you even though I do the job day in day out. And yes the anti staff rhetoric on this forum has gotten worse and worse, which is why more and more staff are quitting this forum.
 
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Dave1987

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I believe those who pay for their own training should be rewarded with higher salaries if the risk of paying for their own training pays off - completing a course at your own expense does not guarantee you a job. In common with some other train crew members on here you make wild accusations against non-rail staff if you're unable to justify your own arguments.

The Tories have never stood for ordinary working people even under Cameron. The only policy which supported ordinary hard working people under David Cameron was a Lib Dem policy which Cameron originally said was 'not viable.' What you mean is train drivers were all right under Cameron and now you're scared about the long term future of your role you don't still think train drivers are all right under the Conservatives. Or perhaps you're of the opinion train drivers are ordinary hard working people but the likes of teachers, nurses and civil servants are not. If we believe Cameron supported hard working people then it also suggests you think single parents can't be hardworking people, given how Cameron's married tax allowance works and the fact he cut child tax credits.

Like the post from the Northern Guard on here you have clear hatred of rail staff, it seems because we have decent pay and conditions but don’t pay for our training. I see little point in engaging with you any further as your hatred clearly is too great to engage in decent conversation.
 

pemma

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Like the post from the Northern Guard on here you have clear hatred of rail staff, it seems because we have decent pay and conditions but don’t pay for our training. I see little point in engaging with you any further as your hatred clearly is too great to engage in decent conversation.

Like ANorthernGuard and unlike yourself I didn't believe David Cameron and George Osborne acted in the best interests of hardworking people. The fact that you can't justify your claim that the Conservatives cared about hardworking people until Theresa May became PM without resorting to childish unverified remarks about me having a hatred towards rail staff suggests you're the one unable to engage in conversation with people whose political opinions aren't centre-right.
 

Robertj21a

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I don’t really care if my rhetoric is wearing thin with you. As with most of the right wingers on here I don’t think you will ever ‘get it’. It’s nothing to do with ‘me me me’. As much as it riles some on here I have a very well paid job that isn’t likely to disappear in my career time. But I’m not so narrow minded as to just see my own situation. I see what is happening in the country and it truly depresses me. To see our PM publicly supporting Uber and Deliveroo with their appalling employment practices. It’s very very easy to see what May’s Government wants for employment in the future. You talk about people gaining more qualifications blah blah blah but never explain who pays for these people to up-skill. These courses are NOT free. I know as a driver my opinion on this whole subject means nothing to you even though I do the job day in day out. And yes the anti staff rhetoric on this forum has gotten worse and worse, which is why more and more staff are quitting this forum.

There's no anti staff rhetoric from me, and I don't see why staff should quit this forum. Surely, it is only those people who can evidence what their specific concerns are ?

I'm not at all sure why other people have to pay for your training. I would see it as a means to give me extra skills and qualifications that may come in useful in future years. Why shouldn't I pay that myself if it is for my benefit - why do you expect other people to pay ?
 

Dave1987

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There's no anti staff rhetoric from me, and I don't see why staff should quit this forum. Surely, it is only those people who can evidence what their specific concerns are ?

I'm not at all sure why other people have to pay for your training. I would see it as a means to give me extra skills and qualifications that may come in useful in future years. Why shouldn't I pay that myself if it is for my benefit - why do you expect other people to pay ?

You seem to believe that people have thousands of pounds squirrelled away to pay for training courses. How are people supposed to up-skill and afford to live. Like I said you and others simply don’t ‘get it’. I thought the Government might finally be getting it when they announced a national training scheme for adult learning but I’ve heard nothing since so it’s clearly just sound bites for political posturing. When people are worried about their livelihoods then making sound bites about retraining or moving their entire families is callous without providing context about how that is paid for.

Ow and I know of at least three rail staff who have quit this forum because of the attitudes towards staff on here.
 
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Dave1987

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Like ANorthernGuard and unlike yourself I didn't believe David Cameron and George Osborne acted in the best interests of hardworking people. The fact that you can't justify your claim that the Conservatives cared about hardworking people until Theresa May became PM without resorting to childish unverified remarks about me having a hatred towards rail staff suggests you're the one unable to engage in conversation with people whose political opinions aren't centre-right.

I don’t ever remember Cameron publicly supporting the likes of Uber with their dodgy employment business practices. If he did then I’m mistaken. Encouraging people into work is one thing. All guards want as far as I’m aware is a stable, secure job. Putting people into insecure jobs is another. May’s support of the ‘gig’ economy shows what kind of jobs she likes.
 

pemma

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I don’t ever remember Cameron publicly supporting the likes of Uber with their dodgy employment business practices. If he did then I’m mistaken. Encouraging people into work is one thing.

It was actually Cameron and Osborne who prevented Boris Johnson taking action against Uber because they believed in a free market.

Financial Times said:
Close ties between David Cameron’s administration and Uber saw Downing Street exert pressure on London not to introduce tough regulations on the car-hailing app, according to several sources.

In late 2015, Boris Johnson, then London mayor, drew up proposals that would have helped the city’s black-cab drivers fight back against the growing number of private-hire cars using Uber. But three months later he dropped several of the most controversial ideas, including forcing customers to wait for five minutes between requesting a car and beginning a journey. This came after both David Cameron, the former prime minister, and George Osborne, the former chancellor, texted Mr Johnson to ask him to reconsider, according to one former official at City Hall. “There were conversations, mainly in text messages from Dave and George, making arguments about free markets and competition,” he said.

Rachel Whetstone, senior vice-president of communications and public policy for Uber, is married to Steve Hilton, Mr Cameron’s former adviser. The couple were godparents to Ivan, the Camerons’ late eldest child. Meanwhile Daniel Korski, one of Mr Cameron’s former aides, had “abrasive” arguments with Isabel Dedring, former deputy mayor in charge of transport, over the issue, according to two people close to Mr Johnson.

https://www.ft.com/content/3c5ebc20-1300-11e7-80f4-13e067d5072c (behind paywall but Googling "David Cameron ‘lobbied on behalf of Uber’ in London" and clicking on the link in the Google search allows you access to the article.)

All guards want as far as I’m aware is a stable, secure job. Putting people into insecure jobs is another. May’s support of the ‘gig’ economy shows what kind of jobs she likes.

So is giving Northern guards a guarantee of employment with Northern on their existing pay grade with annual pay reviews until at least 2025 not offering them stability? If not how many years do you think employment needs to be guaranteed for to be considered stable?
 

LowLevel

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So is giving Northern guards a guarantee of employment with Northern on their existing pay grade with annual pay reviews until at least 2025 not offering them stability? If not how many years do you think employment needs to be guaranteed for to be considered stable?

Just to take that point without any commentary to the positive or negative...

It is to be fair to my colleagues a fact that if they remain as fully qualified safety critical train guards (as their colleagues at TPE etc are) rather than becoming former guards remaining on a payscale by agreement, all concern about their continued employment vanishes because they're required for trains to run and there's no question of railways across the North simply ceasing to exist just because they still have guards.

Consequently it is the choice to remove the status and role of being a guard that takes them from 'no concern' to having to worry about 'potential uncertainty and the goodwill of those in Government/management'.

Consequently without considering any other factors that alone suggests to me the status quo is worth going out of your way to defend if you've been forced into having a mortgage/paying for rental accommodation or have mouths to feed (Which is most of us).

Going even from 'virtual certainty' to 'position with some concern' is a difficulty if you have a 25 year mortgage and that is what these staff are being asked to give up willingly and embrace.

Please do try to read my words as I type them from the perspective of a guard rather than read anything else into them - they're not designed to refer to safety, customer service or impact on any else other than a train guard looking at potentially becoming a customer service assistant.
 

Chester1

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I don’t ever remember Cameron publicly supporting the likes of Uber with their dodgy employment business practices. If he did then I’m mistaken. Encouraging people into work is one thing. All guards want as far as I’m aware is a stable, secure job. Putting people into insecure jobs is another. May’s support of the ‘gig’ economy shows what kind of jobs she likes.

The irony in your choice of example is that black cab drivers have shot themselves in the foot by refusing to accept anything positive about Uber. It was quickly obvious that Uber was much more convenient for anyone capable of using an app but they use every argument including safety to try to get the competion banned because they where unwilling or incapable of adapting. A black cab co-operative ran primarily through an app would have probably defeated Uber quickly in London and probably elsewhere too but some people won't change.

Out of curiosity, how much effort do you make trying to understand other political and life outlooks?
 

Bromley boy

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The irony in your choice of example is that black cab drivers have shot themselves in the foot by refusing to accept anything positive about Uber. It was quickly obvious that Uber was much more convenient for anyone capable of using an app but they use every argument including safety to try to get the competion banned because they where unwilling or incapable of adapting. A black cab co-operative ran primarily through an app would have probably defeated Uber quickly in London and probably elsewhere too but some people won't change.

Out of curiosity, how much effort do you make trying to understand other political and life outlooks?

Yes black cabs were too slow to modernise.

But I think Dave’s wider point is a valid one. I share his concern about the rise of the gig economy, where de facto workers/employees are treated as self employed, solely to the benefit of their “employers”.
 

pemma

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Going even from 'virtual certainty' to 'position with some concern' is a difficulty if you have a 25 year mortgage and that is what these staff are being asked to give up willingly and embrace.

One problem with a 25 year mortgage is there's no guarantee what demand for rail services will be like in 25 years (just like in any other industry.) If, hypothetically, demand was to decrease by 50% over the next 25 years then it wouldn't be viable to keep staff numbers at their current level and redundancies would be a certainty. In the last 15 years or so railway workers have been lucky as demand for train travel has increased significantly but that trend won't last forever. Consequently, a longer guarantee may not be as good as it sounds as if all guards were given a 20 year guarantee and there was a huge drop in usage then once the 20 years expires there would be a very high risk of a lot of mass redundancies, making it hard for those made redundant to get new jobs and those with 5 years remaining of their 25 year mortgage will struggle.

You say what about the guards with a 25 year mortgage, you could also say what about the guards with 5 years remaining to pay off their mortgage - a guarantee of employment until 2025 (subject to them not committing a sackable offence or becoming too sick to work) is effectively a guarantee that they will get their mortgage paid off without having to remortgage and it's a position many people would love to be in.
 

Bletchleyite

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Yes black cabs were too slow to modernise.

But I think Dave’s wider point is a valid one. I share his concern about the rise of the gig economy, where de facto workers/employees are treated as self employed, solely to the benefit of their “employers”.

Though there are other ways to deal with that. I'm starting to favour the idea of "work at will" US-style in all industries, but (and this is absolutely crucial) supplemented by a liveable Universal Basic Income as a proper safety net. This also works well with the "automated" future in that it could be funded by a levy on profit made through use of automation or, as is otherwise suggested sometimes, a land value tax.

What you'd be doing there is accepting the loss of "job security" and replacing it with what you might term personal security or income security provided by the State.

It might well create jobs, too, as if it's easier/cheaper to create jobs there will be more jobs. And genuinely freeing people from their employer (how many people do you know who do a job because it pays the mortgage rather than because they enjoy it, but paying said mortgage is a barrier to looking to self-improve and find something else they do enjoy?) would be a huge benefit.
 

Bromley boy

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What you'd be doing there is accepting the loss of "job security" and replacing it with what you might term personal security or income security provided by the State.

It’s certainly an interesting and somewhat utopian idea, but it envisages a totally different structure to society than what we have now and a bigger role of the state in peoples’ lives than many would be comfortable with.

Then there is the reality that some people prioritise pay and do jobs they don’t enjoy due to economic necessity. Not great for them but economy does need these jobs doing. If the incentive to do unpopular jobs is removed that could well cause an issue.

To some extent we already have this issue in the U.K. Some British workers regard certain jobs (cleaning, caring etc) as beneath them and consequently many unemployed Brits turn their noses up and would rather remain unemployed than clean toilets.

EDIT: a more disutopian version of the future, and the one that I fear the gig economy is pointing to, is one where automation/tech increasingly creates a two tier system: a hyper wealthy elite and an increasingly impoverished majority who will become completely unemployable in years to come as low skilled jobs and, increasingly, highly skilled roles are eliminated.
 
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Robertj21a

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You seem to believe that people have thousands of pounds squirrelled away to pay for training courses. How are people supposed to up-skill and afford to live. Like I said you and others simply don’t ‘get it’. I thought the Government might finally be getting it when they announced a national training scheme for adult learning but I’ve heard nothing since so it’s clearly just sound bites for political posturing. When people are worried about their livelihoods then making sound bites about retraining or moving their entire families is callous without providing context about how that is paid for.

Ow and I know of at least three rail staff who have quit this forum because of the attitudes towards staff on here.

I'll give up now because I feel that it's you who will never 'get it'. Nobody has mentioned anything at all about training courses, let alone any costing a lot of money. People are more than capable of improving their qualifications at little cost but they need to make a bit of a personal effort to do the research for themselves and then put in a few hours. I get the impression that you feel it should be spoon fed by some government agency.
As I say, I'm now out on this one.
 

Wombat

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It is to be fair to my colleagues a fact that if they remain as fully qualified safety critical train guards (as their colleagues at TPE etc are) rather than becoming former guards remaining on a payscale by agreement, all concern about their continued employment vanishes because they're required for trains to run and there's no question of railways across the North simply ceasing to exist just because they still have guards.

Consequently it is the choice to remove the status and role of being a guard that takes them from 'no concern' to having to worry about 'potential uncertainty and the goodwill of those in Government/management'.
I expect everyone understands why guards want the status quo to continue. To be blunt, I think the question is why they should get what they want. Is the fact that they want it sufficient?

I expect everyone also understands that infinite job security doesn't exist for most people. The typical response seems be something along the lines of "Well, everyone should have infinite job security". Which is a nice thought but impractical for reasons that are hopefully obvious. Then the argument becomes "So just because you lot don't have infinite job security, why can't I have it? Why are you dragging everyone else down to your level?" To which the response has to be "Because the same commercial and innovative factors that affect my job security also affect yours".

I get the impression that a lot of railwaymen are used to the days when "railwaymen" was a term in common usage, and you'd get a job in an office or in a factory or on a train and work there for forty-odd years until you retire with a watch, a handshake and a final salary pension. I understand why people want that sort of expectation for their own career, but I don't understand how we can realistically get there in a time of far faster advancement in technology. If you're employed in an office typing letters, and someone comes up with a letter-typing machine that does the job twice as efficiently, should the office owner be forced to keep the staff anyway? If we can run planes without pilots, should we keep the pilots anyway?

Of course there's a massive question over what happens to people displaced by technology advancement. That doesn't mean that we should, or even can, answer the question by saying "Let's just keep everyone employed in the same job forever, whether it needs doing or not".
 

pompeyfan

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To some extent we already have this issue in the U.K. Some British workers regard certain jobs (cleaning, caring etc) as beneath them and consequently many unemployed Brits turn their noses up and would rather remain unemployed than clean toilets.

EDIT: a more disutopian version of the future, and the one that I fear the gig economy is pointing to, is one where automation/tech increasingly creates a two tier system: a hyper wealthy elite and an increasingly impoverished majority who will become completely unemployable in years to come as low skilled jobs and, increasingly, highly skilled roles are eliminated.

Talking of cleaning toilets, it shocks me and disappoints me that train presentation teams, working horrible shifts doing disgusting jobs (including CET emptying, and having to scrub human remains of the front of a train) are on such poor wages, you’d imagine they would have some leverage to gain better terms and conditions.

Your 2nd point reminds of the the film Elysium, it’s not a great film but it’s story does scare me because it’s not that far fetched.
 

Chester1

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I expect everyone understands why guards want the status quo to continue. To be blunt, I think the question is why they should get what they want. Is the fact that they want it sufficient?

I expect everyone also understands that infinite job security doesn't exist for most people. The typical response seems be something along the lines of "Well, everyone should have infinite job security". Which is a nice thought but impractical for reasons that are hopefully obvious. Then the argument becomes "So just because you lot don't have infinite job security, why can't I have it? Why are you dragging everyone else down to your level?" To which the response has to be "Because the same commercial and innovative factors that affect my job security also affect yours".

I get the impression that a lot of railwaymen are used to the days when "railwaymen" was a term in common usage, and you'd get a job in an office or in a factory or on a train and work there for forty-odd years until you retire with a watch, a handshake and a final salary pension. I understand why people want that sort of expectation for their own career, but I don't understand how we can realistically get there in a time of far faster advancement in technology. If you're employed in an office typing letters, and someone comes up with a letter-typing machine that does the job twice as efficiently, should the office owner be forced to keep the staff anyway? If we can run planes without pilots, should we keep the pilots anyway?

Of course there's a massive question over what happens to people displaced by technology advancement. That doesn't mean that we should, or even can, answer the question by saying "Let's just keep everyone employed in the same job forever, whether it needs doing or not".

You must hate guards!
 

Chester1

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And this is what I don't get. Why does a view that a particular job role is not required imply hatred towards the people who presently occupy that job role?

It clearly does not.

It does when your not either willing or capable of accepting that people can hold different views to you without it being a fault in their character or personal. Look at the brexit debate and its clear a substantial number of Brits cannot do it.
 

PR1Berske

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Supermarket staff have not gone on strike over the increase in self--service checkouts. They are, broadly speaking, not very well paid.

Guards continue to strike over the advent of DOO. They are, broadly speaking, very well paid.

I offer this observation as a point of discussion.
 

Bromley boy

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Supermarket staff have not gone on strike over the increase in self--service checkouts. They are, broadly speaking, not very well paid.

Guards continue to strike over the advent of DOO. They are, broadly speaking, very well paid.

I offer this observation as a point of discussion.

That’s not a particularly illuminating or relevant comparison. There are some rather obvious reasons why supermarket staff have been unable to go on strike: their roles are often casual in nature; they can be replaced with around one day’s training; they tend not to be unionised.

I also find it deeply ironic that certain posters on here were the first to get their knickers in a twist and start harrumphing about how the recent Lewisham detainment incident played out,

I’d suggest if you’re baying for a bargain basement, destaffed, DOO railway you shouldn’t also be complaining about what happens when things go wrong on said railway.

I offer this observation as a point of discussion.
 

driver_m

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That’s not a particularly illuminating or relevant comparison. There are some rather obvious reasons why supermarket staff have been unable to go on strike: their roles are often casual in nature; they can be replaced with around one day’s training; they tend not to be unionised.

I also find it deeply ironic that certain posters on here were the first to get their knickers in a twist and start harrumphing about how the recent Lewisham detainment incident played out,

I’d suggest if you’re baying for a bargain basement, destaffed, DOO railway you shouldn’t also be complaining about what happens when things go wrong on said railway.

I offer this observation as a point of discussion.

Can't argue with that at all.

I usually ignore threads like this now, as it's very predictable what's going to happen and as someone who wants to have a guard on all trains, these threads used to rile me. Due to the ignorance and malevolence that tended to be shown by people who clearly hate railstaff or are bitter because they didn't get a job on the railway. However, now I just feel pity for the people advocating DOO .How anyone can seriously think the lower staff levels will lead to lower price tickets, they live in cloud cuckoo land, it won't increase efficiency as many drivers will be so paranoid about potential PTI incidents that they'll end up having other incidents through lack of concentration, or frustration with delays. Then there's the old chestnut about safety. It is always claimed that it's proven to be safe. If someone had got zapped at Lewisham would that claim be justifiable? Look at my colleague who nearly got killed through electrocution at Weaver, would he be here if that train had no guard? I just can't see any other arguement for DOO other than for economic reasons to keep a profit margin ticking along to keep shareholders sweet.
 

Overspeed110

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Another thing, should DOO get forced through, then all the people that were qualified as guards will lose that safety critical status and become purely revenue / customer service based.
That means they can't then transfer (as a guard) to another company that still has guards, they could apply for a guards job of course but would have to go through all the recruitment process and training again, making it much harder to move on than it would have been previously.
 

AlterEgo

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You seem to believe that people have thousands of pounds squirrelled away to pay for training courses. How are people supposed to up-skill and afford to live. Like I said you and others simply don’t ‘get it’. I thought the Government might finally be getting it when they announced a national training scheme for adult learning but I’ve heard nothing since so it’s clearly just sound bites for political posturing. When people are worried about their livelihoods then making sound bites about retraining or moving their entire families is callous without providing context about how that is paid for.

Ow and I know of at least three rail staff who have quit this forum because of the attitudes towards staff on here.

Well, one of the things the Union could be doing is actually using some of their funds to assist staff who will find themselves out of the railway in the next X years. They could offer training or careers advice. M I don’t believe there will be many compulsory redundancies but I’m sure some staff will find new roles less fulfilling and therefore move naturally out of the industry. Very few people if any will move out of the rail industry into another one with the skills they have and be able to secure similar pay and conditions.

Nobody who works in this industry has a right to remain in it for life.
 

Chester1

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Can't argue with that at all.

I usually ignore threads like this now, as it's very predictable what's going to happen and as someone who wants to have a guard on all trains, these threads used to rile me. Due to the ignorance and malevolence that tended to be shown by people who clearly hate railstaff or are bitter because they didn't get a job on the railway. However, now I just feel pity for the people advocating DOO .How anyone can seriously think the lower staff levels will lead to lower price tickets, they live in cloud cuckoo land, it won't increase efficiency as many drivers will be so paranoid about potential PTI incidents that they'll end up having other incidents through lack of concentration, or frustration with delays. Then there's the old chestnut about safety. It is always claimed that it's proven to be safe. If someone had got zapped at Lewisham would that claim be justifiable? Look at my colleague who nearly got killed through electrocution at Weaver, would he be here if that train had no guard? I just can't see any other arguement for DOO other than for economic reasons to keep a profit margin ticking along to keep shareholders sweet.

You have just summed my recent points! Why is it do difficult to believe that people can have a different opinion to you without it being a negative reflection on their character? We are talking about on method of train opperation or another! Neither are any members jobs actually on the line at least for several years and quite possibly never.
 

Wombat

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You must hate guards!
I'm actually in favour of keeping the guards on much of the network - specifically, where stations aren't staffed to the extent that disabled passengers can turn up and go. I'm fundamentally opposed to the notion that the disabled should be obliged to book their assistance in advance, because I think that they should have the same freedom of spontaneity that the rest of us enjoy.

There are good arguments for keeping guards, but "I personally demand a bulletproof guarantee of keeping my job forever" isn't one of them, and bad arguments annoy me.
 

Carlisle

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Supermarket staff have not gone on strike over the increase in self--service checkouts. They are, broadly speaking, not very well paid.

Guards continue to strike over the advent of DOO. They are, broadly speaking, very well paid.

I offer this observation as a point of discussion.
Supermarkets operate in is a highly competitive environment with many different providers, if they were a regional monopoly underwritten by govt, similar to TOCs, with single union ballot having the potential to shut the vast majorly of a regions supermarkets, then I’m pretty sure they’d have tried . Plus there’s no guarantee a guard would have been able to prevent the recent self evacuation at Lewisham, similar incidents have happened previously on both DOO and non DOO trains
 
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pemma

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That’s not a particularly illuminating or relevant comparison. There are some rather obvious reasons why supermarket staff have been unable to go on strike: their roles are often casual in nature; they can be replaced with around one day’s training; they tend not to be unionised.

Supermarket vs rail comparisons are rarely good ones. There are unions which represent supermarket workers and unions which have taken action against supermarkets but the problem with strike action against supermarkets is they employ many part time workers (students, semi-retired, parents of young children and people who would be considered underemployed) - those people don't want to be down on pay due to strike action, in fact some may even volunteer to work overtime to cover those going on strike.

Oh and by the way 1 day's training is an exaggeration. It's a week or two training in total for shop based staff but some of that will involve dealing with customers under very close supervision.
 
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