SWR: Guards/RMT Industrial Action. Next strike dates: 30/31 August, 1/2 September 2019

[Eccles1983]

73% Yes vote on a 63% turnout is hardly an "overwhelming" endorsement of the RMT's action like they're claiming.

It seems that more than a third of those balloted couldn't care either way, while 25% of those who did respond voted no.

So 3/4 of all those who voted wanted it.

Pretty much overwhelming what ever way you want to spin it.

Any political party would sell their kidneys for a mandate as large.

 

[Dave1987]

73% Yes vote on a 63% turnout is hardly an "overwhelming" endorsement of the RMT's action like they're claiming.

It seems that more than a third of those balloted couldn't care either way, while 25% of those who did respond voted no.

52% of the voting population is classed as “the British public/people” by the Tories so I see no issues with their wording.

 

[CN75]

another RMT announcement

20th March ‎2018

FROM RMT PRESS OFFICE
IMMEDIATE

RMT secures renewed mandates for action in ballots on Greater Anglia and South Western Railway enforced by the Tory anti-union laws

RAIL UNION RMT has confirmed today that it has secured overwhelming votes to continue with action in the rail safety disputes on Greater Anglia and South Western Railway after being forced to renew the mandates with both employers under the terms of the new wave of Tory anti-union laws.

On Greater Anglia the strike vote was over 80% yes on a turn-out of over 80% and on South Western Railway the turn-out was 63% with a yes vote of 73%.

RMT General Secretary Mick Cash said:

“RMT has been forced under the latest wave of Tory anti-union laws to re-ballot in the rail safety disputes on both Greater Anglia and South Western Railway under the six month rule and once again our members at both companies have stood united and solid and have renewed the mandate to carry on the fight to put public safety before private profit.

“Both Greater Anglia and South Western Railway have opted to play for time over the past six months rather than acting responsibly and getting round the table with the union to work out a solution to these separate disputes that puts safety and the guard guarantee centre stage. That is the package we have successfully negotiated in both Wales and Scotland and it defies belief that we are being denied the same positive outcome on these English franchises.

“Now that the staff have spoken the ball is in the court of both Greater Anglia and South Western Railway and we expect a swift and positive response to the union’s call for genuine and meaningful talks to commence immediately.”



ENDS

Geoff Martin

The RMT putting a brave face on this result, but this is spin.

Looking at the ballot results published on it’s own website, this time around the number of RMT members in the guard grades at SWR has fallen in six months by 23 from 805 to 782, so you can count those as ‘No’ votes.

Of the new 782, the number of guards voting ‘Yes’ to strikes was 358, down from 504 last time. The number of ‘No’ votes to strikes up from 113 to 133.

Turnout is 63%. However the legal threshold minimum that 40% of those in the group vote ‘Yes’ to strikes is pretty thin at 46%.

If there are actually roughly 900 guards at SWR when you count in the new and non union members, now 358 are voting in supporting strikes.

This could help get the RMT to try and negotiate a different path, before they lose any control over what happens with the new trains and get ignored outright as it was at GTR in the end. They would have to go through another re-ballot in six months time again, and look likely to lose their legal threshold to even strike if this trend was close to repeating. That would knock the RMT’s power to negotiate anything with the company on the rules about operating guards on the new trains down to bystander status.

 

[pompeyfan]

The RMT putting a brave face on this result, but this is spin.

Looking at the ballot results published on it’s own website, this time around the number of RMT members in the guard grades at SWR has fallen in six months by 23 from 805 to 782, so you can count those as ‘No’ votes.

Of the new 782, the number of guards voting ‘Yes’ to strikes was 358, down from 504 last time. The number of ‘No’ votes to strikes up from 113 to 133.

Turnout is 63%. However the legal threshold minimum that 40% of those in the group vote ‘Yes’ to strikes is pretty thin at 46%.

If there are actually roughly 900 guards at SWR when you count in the new and non union members, now 358 are voting in supporting strikes.

This could help get the RMT to try and negotiate a different path, before they lose any control over what happens with the new trains and get ignored outright as it was at GTR in the end. They would have to go through another re-ballot in six months time again, and look likely to lose their legal threshold to even strike if this trend was close to repeating. That would knock the RMT’s power to negotiate anything with the company on the rules about operating guards on the new trains down to bystander status.

What do you think the RMT should do then?

 

[CN75]

What do you think the RMT should do then?

The alternative to striking and having less and less effect is to negotiate the SWR offer to roster a guard on every train hard now. Get agreements about what it means in practice and any operational exceptions, and get a headcount and pay formula agreed. If they could do this every side could come out with something, albeit they would have to swallow the local issue at the TOC which has become far harder since they nationalised the DOO dispute and strikes.

Remember that SWR do not want a dispute on their hands, even if they are getting repaid for the strike costs. It is still very bad for business to have a company at war with itself. They have some room they can manoeuvre, it just isn’t as far as ‘Ok, guards can carry on just like they have been’.

The alternative is RMT membership and influence collapsing and SWR becoming another situation where the company and the driver’s union sign up to an agreement instead. Surely that is a disaster of an outcome for the RMT?

The RMT basically need to accept that for the guard grade to survive it must think differently about where it really sits in the future and become smarter negotiators.

 

[AlterEgo]

So 3/4 of all those who voted wanted it.

Pretty much overwhelming what ever way you want to spin it.

Any political party would sell their kidneys for a mandate as large.

Less than half of those balloted voted for it. 46% of those balloted, in fact.

54% of those balloted did not vote for strike action.

@CN75 has provided some good insight, too.

 

[Emmsie]

They certainly need to come up with something other than passenger safety. Both sides lost credibility during the Southern strikes and RMT lost members, looks like the same pattern emerging. They will just lose all effectiveness as a union by continuing down a path that is doomed to failure.

 

[Dave1987]

The alternative to striking and having less and less effect is to negotiate the SWR offer to roster a guard on every train hard now. Get agreements about what it means in practice and any operational exceptions, and get a headcount and pay formula agreed. If they could do this every side could come out with something, albeit they would have to swallow the local issue at the TOC which has become far harder since they nationalised the DOO dispute and strikes.

Remember that SWR do not want a dispute on their hands, even if they are getting repaid for the strike costs. It is still very bad for business to have a company at war with itself. They have some room they can manoeuvre, it just isn’t as far as ‘Ok, guards can carry on just like they have been’.

The alternative is RMT membership and influence collapsing and SWR becoming another situation where the company and the driver’s union sign up to an agreement instead. Surely that is a disaster of an outcome for the RMT?

The RMT basically need to accept that for the guard grade to survive it must think differently about where it really sits in the future and become smarter negotiators.

I actually very much agree with you in some of your post there. But when the cabinet ministers start harping on about the Brexit vote and election wins talking about ‘the majority of the British people’ on the back of 52% votes or less for the GE you cannot criticise the RMT for their language regarding voting.

 

[AlterEgo]

They certainly need to come up with something other than passenger safety. Both sides lost credibility during the Southern strikes and RMT lost members, looks like the same pattern emerging. They will just lose all effectiveness as a union by continuing down a path that is doomed to failure.

The problem is that if the RMT is as lacking in self-awareness as a small portion of its members on here seem to be, they're doomed.

There were a number of posters, including me, that repeatedly stated that it was useless for the union to be wittering on about rail safety benefits and train protection when the travelling public did not care.

The travelling public care most about having a presence in the passenger saloon, a human face to talk to, and safety from crime or anti social behaviour.

This forms one of the main reasons why the RMT was comprehensively outflanked during the GTR dispute.

 

[Dave1987]

The problem is that if the RMT is as lacking in self-awareness as a small portion of its members on here seem to be, they're doomed.

There were a number of posters, including me, that repeatedly stated that it was useless for the union to be wittering on about rail safety benefits and train protection when the travelling public did not care.

The travelling public care most about having a presence in the passenger saloon, a human face to talk to, and safety from crime or anti social behaviour.

This forms one of the main reasons why the RMT was comprehensively outflanked during the GTR dispute.

At the same time no one cared about Grenfell tower being a ticking inferno time bomb, that was until it burned down killing 71 people.

 

[AlterEgo]

At the same time no one cared about Grenfell tower being a ticking inferno time bomb, that was until it burned down killing 71 people.

I don’t understand your point here.

 

[pompeyfan]

The alternative to striking and having less and less effect is to negotiate the SWR offer to roster a guard on every train hard now. Get agreements about what it means in practice and any operational exceptions, and get a headcount and pay formula agreed. If they could do this every side could come out with something, albeit they would have to swallow the local issue at the TOC which has become far harder since they nationalised the DOO dispute and strikes.

Remember that SWR do not want a dispute on their hands, even if they are getting repaid for the strike costs. It is still very bad for business to have a company at war with itself. They have some room they can manoeuvre, it just isn’t as far as ‘Ok, guards can carry on just like they have been’.

The alternative is RMT membership and influence collapsing and SWR becoming another situation where the company and the driver’s union sign up to an agreement instead. Surely that is a disaster of an outcome for the RMT?

The RMT basically need to accept that for the guard grade to survive it must think differently about where it really sits in the future and become smarter negotiators.

To an extent, I agree with what you’re saying, but your plan relies on TOC (both present and future) and the DfT adhering to the agreement and not pulling the carpet from underneath the guards. Whatever happens, guards should retain and be assessed on the training they currently have. But there’s no point guards having that training, if the train departs DOO because turnaround times have been crushed and the guard misses their next working by 3 minutes because of a track circuit failure somewhere.

 

[Dave1987]

I don’t understand your point here.

No one blinked an eye at Grenfell tower even though the residents repeatedly warned about its dangers. Council and Government repeatedly ignored them. That was until it burnt down killing 71 then suddenly it became a big concern for the public and the council/government.

 

[Wychwood93]

The travelling public care most about having a presence in the passenger saloon, a human face to talk to, and safety from crime or anti social behaviour.

The latter part of the quote means nothing if you do not actually see the guard - the 'I am in the middle of the train', 'rear' etc. is no good with regard to safety. CCTV may well be available, if working or not too blurred (like my daughter's bike theft from Christchurch last July), the latter could well be the case on the train. I may well be ex-staff, and even a former Manager (we are human), but I still like to see someone wander through the train and check tickets etc. and answer the questions. A happy customer could well be a returning customer and v.v.

 

[AlterEgo]

No one blinked an eye at Grenfell tower even though the residents repeatedly warned about its dangers. Council and Government repeatedly ignored them. That was until it burnt down killing 71 then suddenly it became a big concern for the public and the council/government.

I know that, but the safety argument has been done to death already over the past two years on this forum and I’m not interested in covering it again.

 

[Wychwood93]

No one blinked an eye at Grenfell tower even though the residents repeatedly warned about its dangers. Council and Government repeatedly ignored them. That was until it burnt down killing 71 then suddenly it became a big concern for the public and the council/government.

Whilst Grenfell was a tragedy, what bugs me is the number of false claims made subsequently. It was a Council and privately owned space. Oddly enough the Government is not responsible for everything, easy to blame, too easy, some like me, would say. This is open to other views and probably, given the nature of the forum, nothing at all to do with the SWR Guards starting point. The following reply could easily give a good recipe for a Thai curry or the real directions to the 'Highway to Hell'. Eager anticipation....

 

[CN75]

To an extent, I agree with what you’re saying, but your plan relies on TOC (both present and future) and the DfT adhering to the agreement and not pulling the carpet from underneath the guards. Whatever happens, guards should retain and be assessed on the training they currently have. But there’s no point guards having that training, if the train departs DOO because turnaround times have been crushed and the guard misses their next working by 3 minutes because of a track circuit failure somewhere.

How about this?

1) All guards at all locations are certified on both the new trains and the older ones which still operate with a guard operating the doors

2) The drivers operate the doors on the new trains and the guards have a customer service and ticket collection primary reaponsibility but keep all the operating knowledge and training which doesn’t include the doors

3) All guard depots as far as possible have a mixture of both sorts of trains in their workload, so everyone is treated the same

4) Parameters around the new trains running without guards in ‘unplanned’ situations are agreed with the RMT and SWR so that the same rules are used for working out contingency gaps between trains like you mention regardless of the type of train

5) All the depot numbers of staff get agreed now and in the future in the usual way

SWR get their way with the new trains operating with drivers and get the benefits they want performance wise but the guards keep all their operational training, and retain industrial power to stop the service at least in some form on the old trains, whatever happens. Every guard stays in the same job, the same training and therefore gets the same pay rise and benefits negotiated for them with the RMT in similar control to how they are now. Every guard still ‘matters’ to SWR in both customer service and operational training.

Build up such a deal, sign it off togetherand start repairing the damage on both sides so that the issue can be kicked down the line for another ten years?

Who knows if that would be acceptable to SWR, but they will certainly want the strikes to end. The window where the RMT have any control over the agreement is closing rapidly. A solution forced onto them could be far more precarious for the guards’ concerns.

 

[BestWestern]

They certainly need to come up with something other than passenger safety. Both sides lost credibility during the Southern strikes and RMT lost members, looks like the same pattern emerging. They will just lose all effectiveness as a union by continuing down a path that is doomed to failure.

The difference in this case being that currently SWR operate zero DOO services, and a Guards' strike will cripple the network, a rather different landscape to Southern.

 

[BestWestern]

They certainly need to come up with something other than passenger safety. Both sides lost credibility during the Southern strikes and RMT lost members, looks like the same pattern emerging. They will just lose all effectiveness as a union by continuing down a path that is doomed to failure.

The difference being that currently SWR operate zero DOO services, and a Guards' strike will cripple their network. Their Drivers currently have zero DOO responsibility, are unlikely to want any, and on strike days will simply be paid for sitting in a messroom, rather than be out running DOO services as normal. Finally of course, SWR is a 'proper' franchise, not just a skivvy to do the DfT's dirty work for them. It's a very different landscape to Southern.

 

[AlterEgo]

The difference being that currently SWR operate zero DOO services, and a Guards' strike will cripple their network. Their Drivers currently have zero DOO responsibility, are unlikely to want any, and on strike days will simply be paid for sitting in a messroom, rather than be out running DOO services as normal. Finally of course, SWR is a 'proper' franchise, not just a skivvy to do the DfT's dirty work for them. It's a very different landscape to Southern.

In what way you do class the Southern franchise as a “skivvy” in a way that SWR isn’t?

SWR have the same agreement for the Secretary of State to cover revenue losses owing to strike action as GTR do.

 

[BestWestern]

In what way you do class the Southern franchise as a “skivvy” in a way that SWR isn’t?

SWR have the same agreement for the Secretary of State to cover revenue losses owing to strike action as GTR do.

GTR is a 'management contract' - i.e. the DfT says jump, they ask if they should take their pants down first. Hence that was where the DOO roll-out began, the franchisee does whatever it is told to do, acting essentially on the DfT's behalf. SWR is a 'normal' franchise.

 

[Emmsie]

The difference being that currently SWR operate zero DOO services, and a Guards' strike will cripple their network. Their Drivers currently have zero DOO responsibility, are unlikely to want any, and on strike days will simply be paid for sitting in a messroom, rather than be out running DOO services as normal. Finally of course, SWR is a 'proper' franchise, not just a skivvy to do the DfT's dirty work for them. It's a very different landscape to Southern.

The vast majority of passengers aren't interested in all that, as far as they are concerned the safety argument has been put to bed as so many services already run DOO.

 

[Domh245]

GTR is a 'management contract' - i.e. the DfT says jump, they ask if they should take their pants down first. Hence that was where the DOO roll-out began, the franchisee does whatever it is told to do, acting essentially on the DfT's behalf. SWR is a 'normal' franchise.

I've seen it suggested somewhere that despite being a management contract, the amount of DOO introduced was down to the bidders (in much the same way that the 717s were part of Govia's bid) and wasn't specified by the DfT during the ITT beyond maintaining what was already DOO. Supposedly Govia's bid also had the largest amount of DOO conversion.

 

[Goldfish62]

I actually very much agree with you in some of your post there. But when the cabinet ministers start harping on about the Brexit vote and election wins talking about ‘the majority of the British people’ on the back of 52% votes or less for the GE you cannot criticise the RMT for their language regarding voting.

Quite. The "will of the people" wouldn't have passed the threshold and has somewhat more far reaching implications for the country than any industrial action.

 

[BestWestern]

The vast majority of passengers aren't interested in all that, as far as they are concerned the safety argument has been put to bed as so many services already run DOO.

Perhaps, though I'd suggest you delve a little deeper into what some user groups have actually said. But the differences between GTR and SWR have no link with what passengers do or don't think.

 

[BestWestern]

I've seen it suggested somewhere that despite being a management contract, the amount of DOO introduced was down to the bidders (in much the same way that the 717s were part of Govia's bid) and wasn't specified by the DfT during the ITT beyond maintaining what was already DOO. Supposedly Govia's bid also had the largest amount of DOO conversion.

Many things have been suggested, and doubtless will continue to be for years to come. However, the general wisdom is that the DfT are well and truly running the show at GTR. Frankly, no private company would pursue the aggressive, almost pathological campaign against its own staff that GTR did, unless there was something far bigger going on behind the scenes.

 

[Carlisle]

To an extent, I agree with what you’re saying, but your plan relies on TOC (both present and future) and the DfT adhering to the agreement and not pulling the carpet from underneath the guards. Whatever happens, guards should retain and be assessed on the training they currently have. But there’s no point guards having that training, if the train departs DOO because turnaround times have been crushed and the guard misses their next working by 3 minutes because of a track circuit failure somewhere.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if had our railways been fully privatised or even stayed as BR, that all new driver and guard recruits would for several years now have had sign some kind of waiver acknowledging DOO/ DCO rules could at some point be introduced and not permitted to accept the job if they weren’t happy to cooperate reasonably with this in future.

 

[pompeyfan]

How about this?

1) All guards at all locations are certified on both the new trains and the older ones which still operate with a guard operating the doors

2) The drivers operate the doors on the new trains and the guards have a customer service and ticket collection primary reaponsibility but keep all the operating knowledge and training which doesn’t include the doors

3) All guard depots as far as possible have a mixture of both sorts of trains in their workload, so everyone is treated the same

4) Parameters around the new trains running without guards in ‘unplanned’ situations are agreed with the RMT and SWR so that the same rules are used for working out contingency gaps between trains like you mention regardless of the type of train

5) All the depot numbers of staff get agreed now and in the future in the usual way

SWR get their way with the new trains operating with drivers and get the benefits they want performance wise but the guards keep all their operational training, and retain industrial power to stop the service at least in some form on the old trains, whatever happens. Every guard stays in the same job, the same training and therefore gets the same pay rise and benefits negotiated for them with the RMT in similar control to how they are now. Every guard still ‘matters’ to SWR in both customer service and operational training.

Build up such a deal, sign it off togetherand start repairing the damage on both sides so that the issue can be kicked down the line for another ten years?

Who knows if that would be acceptable to SWR, but they will certainly want the strikes to end. The window where the RMT have any control over the agreement is closing rapidly. A solution forced onto them could be far more precarious for the guards’ concerns.

Not a terrible assessment, if the powers that be could be tied down to it. There would have to be some discussions on what is classed as reasonable, getting Strawberry Hill guards to work trains to Salisbury for example, or Bournemouth doing Dorkings or Readings is a bit far fetched. But I do get your point.

 

[FenMan]

No text

 

[FenMan]

At the same time no one cared about Grenfell tower being a ticking inferno time bomb, that was until it burned down killing 71 people.

Righto. To add to irrelevant points in this thread, I've heard the price of fish has been creeping upwards lately.