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Deal agreed between RMT and SWR regarding future role of guards

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Matt Taylor

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Mod Note: Posts #1 - #42 originally in this thread.

I hear that the RMT has accepted the new proposals thereby ending this very protracted dispute.
 
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DorkingMain

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I hear that the RMT has accepted the new proposals thereby ending this very protracted dispute.
Heard the same. Overwhelming majority voted in favour of the proposals. Hardly a surprise after 4 years of strikes + the potential for a repeat of what happened next door at Southern.
 

Ashley Hill

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I suppose it's a double edged sword for the RMT, save guards duties or save guards jobs. The trouble is whilst sacrificing the former it will ultimately lead to fighting for the latter in the future!
 

DorkingMain

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As long as ASLEF are happy to accept their drivers being responsible for dispatch, there's little the RMT can do
 

craigybagel

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As long as ASLEF are happy to accept their drivers being responsible for dispatch, there's little the RMT can do
But are they (in this particular case)? It would be funny if SWR went to all the effort of getting the RMT on board only for ASLEF to reject it....
 

Undiscovered

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But are they (in this particular case)? It would be funny if SWR went to all the effort of getting the RMT on board only for ASLEF to reject it....
ASLEF would have been consulted at some point, and tacitly agreed to it, surely?
Else if you've taken the doors off the guards and ASLEF won't take them, you've gotta go, cap in hand to a grade you've just waged war on, stripped of that duty and ask them to take it back....
Well *sucks air through teeth*
 

pompeyfan

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Probably more happy to keep their jobs.

well this is exactly it, they made the logical choice to avoid being given 90 days. Them (and to some extent ASLEF) have made the company come a long way from the original concept of pure DOO-P with someone rostered on board. So if there’s no metro guard (and eventually commercial guard) the train doesn’t move in passenger service.
 

craigybagel

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ASLEF already accepted it well over a year ago, not long after I left
Ah ok, I wasn't sure on the situation there. Was there a big pay deal that it formed part of?
well this is exactly it, they made the logical choice to avoid being given 90 days. Them (and to some extent ASLEF) have made the company come a long way from the original concept of pure DOO-P with someone rostered on board. So if there’s no metro guard (and eventually commercial guard) the train doesn’t move in passenger service.
Indeed, it seems a pretty good result all round. Yet I'm sure in future DOO battles we'll see certain posters (always the same ones) saying that RMT should just roll over and accept what's happening as they always lose in the end anyway, when in fact most of the time they get at least a partial victory.
 

TEW

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Ah ok, I wasn't sure on the situation there. Was there a big pay deal that it formed part of?

Indeed, it seems a pretty good result all round. Yet I'm sure in future DOO battles we'll see certain posters (always the same ones) saying that RMT should just roll over and accept what's happening as they always lose in the end anyway, when in fact most of the time they get at least a partial victory.
It was part of a big pay deal, yes.

There's a lot more to the deal between the RMT and SWR than just the DOO issue too, certainly enough for the RMT to consider it a partial victory.
 

43066

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Reality wouldn’t appear to bear this out, for instance a quick google search suggests conductors on New York Subway make virtually identical & passionate arguments for the retention of their grade despite surely being aware only a tiny number of city metros worldwide retain guard operated doors.

But we aren’t talking about metros, in the majority of cases (Merseyrail aside), so I’m slightly at a loss as to the relevance. Rest assured guards play an active and useful role in the operation of the railway wherever they are retained.

I don’t think it’s particularly desirable to rehash the pro and anti DOO arguments, but I do wonder how it is the pro DOO posters think they will benefit from DOO (other than presumably deriving some kind of satisfaction from seeing a hated trade union crushed). The passenger experience is all the better for having guards, and tickets will certainly be no cheaper without them.

It was part of a big pay deal, yes.

There's a lot more to the deal between the RMT and SWR than just the DOO issue too, certainly enough for the RMT to consider it a partial victory.

I must say I’m surprised how easily ASLEF seem to take on responsibility for dispatch where it isn’t already in the drivers’ contracts. I suspect the issue is that a lot of different issues are rolled up into the same pay deal.
 

pompeyfan

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But we aren’t talking about metros, in the majority of cases (Merseyrail aside), so I’m slightly at a loss as to the relevance. Rest assured guards play an active and useful role in the operation of the railway wherever they are retained.

I don’t think it’s particularly desirable to rehash the pro and anti DOO arguments, but I do wonder how it is the pro DOO posters think they will benefit from DOO (other than presumably deriving some kind of satisfaction from seeing a hated trade union crushed). The passenger experience is all the better for having guards, and tickets will certainly be no cheaper without them.



I must say I’m surprised how easily ASLEF seem to take on responsibility for dispatch where it isn’t already in the drivers’ contracts. I suspect the issue is that a lot of different issues are rolled up into the same pay deal.

the perceived argument is that more time can be spent patrolling the train and that the guard won’t be required to dispatch from certain parts of the train, however that’s not strictly true as they’ll need to work from/near to universal areas on the train, so on a 10 coach 701 train they’ll spend most of the journey near to coach 3 or 8, especially now SWR are installing assistance points on the platform to match up with where the ramp would need to be deployed.
 

Carlisle

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But we aren’t talking about metros, in the majority of cases (Merseyrail aside), so I’m slightly at a loss as to the relevance.
Most of the SWR services under discussion here for conversation to DCO are metro routes, just not part of an entirely self contained system like LU
 

pompeyfan

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Most of the SWR services under discussion here for conversation to DCO are metro routes, just not part of an entirely self contained system like LU

but the method of operation agreement includes expanding that method to all stock when reasonably possible
 

Carlisle

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but the method of operation agreement includes expanding that method to all stock when reasonably possible
Does that method preform well on the adjacent & broadly similar GTR network?
 
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DorkingMain

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Most of the SWR services under discussion here for conversation to DCO are metro routes, just not part of an entirely self contained system like LU
This is not quite true - the deal makes provision for DCO operation across the network, when stock is adapted / introduced to be able to do so

I must say I’m surprised how easily ASLEF seem to take on responsibility for dispatch where it isn’t already in the drivers’ contracts. I suspect the issue is that a lot of different issues are rolled up into the same pay deal.
With SWR it was a little bit of an odd case - DOO had already been put into contracts about 20 or so years prior. This was done with an understanding at the time it would only be used for ECS, or isolated trials on a handful of metro routes, but that stipulation was never actually put into the contract (simply, it said "DOO will be the normal method of operation"). 20 years down the line, the company basically threatened to evoke that clause with the 701s. ASLEF therefore pushed their members to vote for the deal on the basis that although it stipulated full DCO, it would guarantee a second member of staff on each train - the primary concern for a lot of SWR drivers wasn't so much having to deal with the doors, but having to deal with the passengers.
 
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Flange Squeal

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but the method of operation agreement includes expanding that method to all stock when reasonably possible
It'll be interesting to see if the 458s return from their future refurb with right hand side door release buttons restored somewhere around the desk (they previously had them, but the larger GSM-R radio took their place when that replaced CSR).
 

jc1

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It'll be interesting to see if the 458s return from their future refurb with right hand side door release buttons restored somewhere around the desk (they previously had them, but the larger GSM-R radio took their place when that replaced CSR).
I thought 458s were being replaced by 701s
 

swt_passenger

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I thought 458s were being replaced by 701s
They still are, and then they themselves are being refurbished to replace the failed 442 conversion. It’s a new plan that’s been known for about a week, and has a thread here:
 

jc1

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They still are, and then they themselves are being refurbished to replace the failed 442 conversion. It’s a new plan that’s been known for about a week, and has a thread here:
I didn't know that.
 

Watershed

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They'll get the same salary in exchange for fewer duties and fewer working hours per week. To compensate for the reduction in hours, more guards will have to be recruited, and/or more rest day working will be required.

The hourly rate has gone up by 13.5%, which will in fact mean a net pay increase for most guards, as RDW payments will be based on the new, higher hourly figures (from RMT document):

1618308315621.png

That is an unbelievably generous deal.
 

pompeyfan

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They'll get the same salary in exchange for fewer duties and fewer working hours per week. To compensate for the reduction in hours, more guards will have to be recruited, and/or more rest day working will be required.

The hourly rate has gone up by 13.5%, which will in fact mean a net pay increase for most guards, as RDW payments will be based on the new, higher hourly figures (from RMT document):

View attachment 94310

That is an unbelievably generous deal.

the RMT document makes interesting reading, I suppose it’s a case of jump and take a sweetener or be pushed with 90 days notice.
 

dingdinger

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They'll get the same salary in exchange for fewer duties and fewer working hours per week. To compensate for the reduction in hours, more guards will have to be recruited, and/or more rest day working will be required.

The hourly rate has gone up by 13.5%, which will in fact mean a net pay increase for most guards, as RDW payments will be based on the new, higher hourly figures (from RMT document):

View attachment 94310

That is an unbelievably generous deal.
The timetable will not go back to what it was pre covid so there may not be a need to recruit more than what they were previously recruiting. Also you could argue metro guards will have more duties not less.
 

387star

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Will such a change in the skillet reduce those looking at the job with Driver in mind? With safety critical activity removed the link between the Guard and Driver role weakens
 

Matt Taylor

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More guards will be required, covering the daily work is already a bit of a stretch sometimes as the guards who have left the grade in the last year have been replaced but at a slower rate due to the pandemic.

There is more to this deal than just money and hours, there are changes to the way spare turns are booked, changes to break periods and changes to Christmas arrangements among others.
 

Watershed

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Also you could argue metro guards will have more duties not less.
True, they will have to check tickets which they did not previously have to do. However, that is not a safety critical role, and so they aren't potentially putting their career at risk at every station, as is the case with dispatch.

If you have dispatch responsibilities, these are obviously compulsory at each stop, whereas even with targets and monitoring, I am sure there will be times that metro guards won't be doing ticket checks - sometimes even whole journeys.
 
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