Mark Harper will be on Laura Kuenssberg's programme today (27/11/2022 BBC1 09:00)

[O L Leigh]

They will want committed Sundays rather than Sundays inside, for this reason.

Committed Sundays won’t save any money. Well, not unless you have a particularly bad issue with cherry picking.

 

[Andrew1395]

Not sure what the TOC changes the Secretary of State is after, apart from job losses, and worsening terms and conditions. Once upon a time “ reform” meant improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc.

The Secretary of State stood on a manifesto that said its ambition was to deliver a high wage high skilled Britain.

 

[yorksrob]

There is way too much money sloshing around the system which is why we have had massive house price inflation, and partly the reason why inflation is high - its not all imported as the Bank of England made clear when putting up interest rates. Interest payments on government debt is now rising significantly

We've had massive house price inflation for donkeys years. Why is now any different ?

If there is all this money sloshing around, the government needs to be encouraging domestic, preferably labour intensive economic activity to soak some of it up.

 

[Towers]

I think it’s only a matter of time before ticket offices at many stations either a) disappear completely or b) are changed to a multi-disciplinary role. This is one change, that, certainly in the long-run, is only going to go one way due to the change in demographics and technology.

This ^

The RMT have adopted an approach of "nothing is resolved until everything is resolved", which quite simply means that unless the DfT agree to keep ticket offices open this dispute will drag on forever. I completely agree with the above comments that they're going anyway, and getting staff into multipurpose roles with a future really ought to be something that a union can turn into a positive discussion.

Sooner or later the guards and every other grade are going to have to start asking questions of their union leaders about how their individual aspects of the disupute are being resolved, as otherwise it does seem that there's no prospect of an end in sight.

 

[theking]

The government paid to keep the railway at full employment during Covid, and now it has to balance the books.

They made that choice to keep keyworkers moving, although in hindsight not many did.
They also payed millions of people 80% of their wages to sit at home tossing it off, their pay and conditions aren't now paying the consequences now.

Exactly, I don't understand why they keep bleating they spent 16 billion to keep the railway running.

I know many staff would have sat indoors on 80% instead of risking their health.

How much of that 16 billion went to multinationals profit.

 

[Class 170101]

The issue with this being it probably wont save money; in fact the likely increase in establishment - unless they reduce M-F rostered diagrams fairly considerable - will probably cost more. I agree it should be formalised into a 7-day week everywhere but you can’t have your cake and eat it.

How much of a service reduction on Mondays and Fridays would be needed to get Sundays inside the working week and keep the establishment as is?

Could the current Saturday service on Friday, Saturday and Monday work?

 

[greyman42]

I'm not sure that I agree. I think that they might be cutting their own throats. The electorate may not care much about (ahem) "greedy railstaff", but they may be more sympathetic towards other striking professions. Lets not forget that everyone is feeling the pinch right now, whoever they are and whatever they do, and I'm not sure how much support the Conservatives can count on come polling day.

Not everyone is feeling the pinch. Some people are managing just fine. I don't know why this one keeps getting wheeled out.

 

[43066]

As a rail user rather than an employee I'd consider that closing ticket offices would be a seriously retrograde step and would certainly make travel more difficult for a not inconsidersble proportion of the population if my local station is anything to go by.

If we’re being honest, when did you last use one? Let’s be real here: where I live a vanishingly small % of passengers buy tickets in the traditional way. I’ve used one a few times as a priv ticket user, even that is now possible on my phone and, quite frankly, I’ll be doing that going forward.

The issue with this being it probably wont save money; in fact the likely increase in establishment - unless they reduce M-F rostered diagrams fairly considerable - will probably cost more. I agree it should be formalised into a 7-day week everywhere but you can’t have your cake and eat it.

Indeed.

I think it’s only a matter of time before ticket offices at many stations either a) disappear completely or b) are changed to a multi-disciplinary role. This is one change, that, certainly in the long-run, is only going to go one way due to the change in demographics and technology.

I can only agree once again. This was the case long before Covid, of course.

Committed Sundays won’t save any money. Well, not unless you have a particularly bad issue with cherry picking.

If it avoids increasing driver establishment levels it certainly will save money, certainly moreso than bringing Sundays inside, across the board.

The RMT have adopted an approach of "nothing is resolved until everything is resolved",

That’s their starting position for the negotiation. Get the big ticket items resolved first - indeed it seems a deal was close last week.

 

[Thirteen]

This ^

The RMT have adopted an approach of "nothing is resolved until everything is resolved", which quite simply means that unless the DfT agree to keep ticket offices open this dispute will drag on forever. I completely agree with the above comments that they're going anyway, and getting staff into multipurpose roles with a future really ought to be something that a union can turn into a positive discussion.

Sooner or later the guards and every other grade are going to have to start asking questions of their union leaders about how their individual aspects of the disupute are being resolved, as otherwise it does seem that there's no prospect of an end in sight.

The ticket offices is not the battle the RMT will win especially when you consider they tried striking over that when TfL decided to do away with ticket offices on the London Underground and those ended up closing anyway.

 

[TheBigD]

How much of a service reduction on Mondays and Fridays would be needed to get Sundays inside the working week and keep the establishment as is?

Could the current Saturday service on Friday, Saturday and Monday work?

On average, between 14 and 17%*more staff required for Sundays inside the working week but...

It will vary by a lot depending upon what services each depot works on a Sunday. For example XC guards at Cambridge had 8/24 Sundays pre covid whilst another xc guards depot had just 4/27.

Then you've got some depots work pretty close to their max hours whilst some depots are way below. For example, at one point under Central Trains, Cambridge guards had just below 800 hours of work for an 888 hour roster (24 × 37 hours).

Then you have some lines that are closed on Sundays which would affect some depots more than others. No Joint Line Sunday service or Robin Hood Line north of Mansfield for example.

* that figure was what a Central Trains planning manager told me years ago.

 

[greyman42]

I’m not sure that’s true - that’s certainly not what my colleagues on a picket line reported yesterday. In any case, it isn’t about public sympathy. You’ll also note that public sympathy for the government (across many, many areas) is also dropping.

Picket line? It sounds like something from the 1980s. Why do they need a picket line in this day and age?

 

[the sniper]

Picket line? It sounds like something from the 1980s. Why do they need a picket line in this day and age?

Why does it matter to you?

 

[Horizon22]

How much of a service reduction on Mondays and Fridays would be needed to get Sundays inside the working week and keep the establishment as is?

Could the current Saturday service on Friday, Saturday and Monday work?

I doubt it - it’s still “peaky” although less so. And frankly the Saturday service needs to be improved at certain TOCs from the pre-Covid days. Turning the agreed train service structure that has been in place for almost 100 years is no mean feat.

As for your first point as a educated (very rough) guess maybe 20-25% of diagrams - some could be done with rostering “efficiencies” but still seems like a tall order.

 

[Llanigraham]

As a rail user rather than an employee I'd consider that closing ticket offices would be a seriously retrograde step and would certainly make travel more difficult for a not inconsidersble proportion of the population if my local station is anything to go by.

I do wonder whether these potential closures might not encourage more independent offices to open, like we had at Newtown and there still are at Ludlow and Gobowen.

 

[muz379]

Again much of this lays with Network Rail. Like you I’ve heard nothing of reforms working for a TOC.

Heard some of the suggested reforms which have been suggested by the RDG in their talks with the RMT include things like DOO , Sunday working committment accross the board , catering only operating when it is profitable , booking offices closing and station grades being merged into 1 grade to name a few .

Nothing official in writing though . Which is part of the issue

The whole negotiation is a shambles. "Agree to these reforms before we talk about pay." There is nothing stopping them from saying "Thanks for agreeing. You get nothing. We can't afford it." Just look at how they treat other public sector workers and its obvious why this tactic is being resisted so heavily. I cannot see why both cannot be negotiated together as a package.

There for me is a more troubling aspect to these "negotiations" if you can call them that . The DFT is essentially trying to negotiate a framework agreement and set payrise that will apply to all TOC's . But accross the industry there are multiple sets of T's&C's for the same grades . Its obvious you'll never be able to get unanimous agreement to a framework agreement like this .

 

[matacaster]

The various union's complain that the govt is holding the purse strings and the govt won't negotiate except through the tocs. From the govt perspective, if they hold direct talks with say the RMT and reach an agreement, then Aslef are likely to start from that settlement figure and want yet more. If the unions want to negotiate with one entity (the govt), then the the unions should a agree a joint common approach to avoid either side leapfrogging.

 

[O L Leigh]

If it avoids increasing driver establishment levels it certainly will save money, certainly moreso than bringing Sundays inside, across the board.

Correct, but only in as much as it’s cheaper than bringing Sundays inside. However, at TOCs where Sundays are worked on a voluntary basis, changing to committed Sundays will not save money as these will still be worked as overtime at whatever rate prevails at that company.

Not everyone is feeling the pinch. Some people are managing just fine. I don't know why this one keeps getting wheeled out.

That’s a point of pedantry. My point is that the effect of increases to the cost of living are not being felt only in one small segment of society. These are issues that are likely to have an impact on how folk will think when electing their next representative to Westminster.

 

[Mikey C]

The last two years have show the money is there where it’s deemed politically necessary. The “there’s no money” line is trotted out when it suits, along with the spurious idea that pay rises are inflationary so must be resisted, yet unfunded tax cuts to 50% tax payers somehow aren’t,

A policy reversed by Hunt and replaced by tax increases for the 45% tax payers.

Exactly this. The government talks about money as if it arrives here from outer space in a cardboard box at irregular intervals. Ultimately the government controls the supply of money in our economy, whether that’s through borrowing, issuing bonds and gilts or ’quantitive easing’. They produced trillions of pounds from nothing to pay for dodgy unusable PPE, covid business loans, furlough and test & trace. If the government wishes to increase rail industry budgets then it is as simple as adding a few zeros to a number on an Excel spreadsheet somewhere.

Except there is a limit to government borrowing, whether for expenditure or tax cuts, as Truss and Kwarteng found out when the markets rejected their policies, leading to chaos in the markets and interest rates shooting up.

 

[AVK17]

Except there is a limit to government borrowing, whether for expenditure or tax cuts, as Truss and Kwarteng found out when the markets rejected their policies, leading to chaos in the markets and interest rates shooting up.

There's a limit to how much they're prepared to borrow, which is not quite the same thing. And borrowing is just one mechanism for a government to obtain money. The policies of Truss and co are nothing to do with this.

 

[brad465]

Correct me if something like this already exists, but my view regarding redundancy is that if a worker is made redundant, whether because of cutbacks and/or due to technological advances, they should be entitled to free education/training for a set period (1-2 years if sufficient) that can allow them to move onto another job, and maybe even a bursary to support income while in training. This will hopefully reduce strike sentiment regarding "reforms"/modernisation, and from a wider perspective could help the economy through higher employment, where at the moment a worker shortage will in part be down to a proportion of the unemployed not having the skills needed for sectors with vacancies, which in turn can help fund the costs of the aforementioned retraining and short term income support.

In particular in the 1980s regarding the miner's strikes, the biggest issue was not closing mines/manufacturing in affected areas, it was not providing alternative industry/opportunities to the affected areas, which has led to them becoming run down and is why "levelling up" has been deemed necessary.

 

[trainophile]

Don't know if anyone else noticed but Harper was on the Andrew Neil show this evening (Channel 4 17:45). Mostly more of the same, but I'll say one thing for him, he does turn up and doesn't dodge (most of) the questions.

 

[DarloRich]

As long as he keeps insisting on ‘reforms’ before moving forward I see no end in sight to the unrest.

I’ve yet to see any reforms tabled. No-ones even talking to us. Surely it’s pointless to continue to insist on something happening that appears not to even exist.

We must remember that the point of appearing on a programme like this one is to speak not to those who know about the dispute but to speak to those who relay on the media/social media for their knowledge. This is the start of an attempt to win back he narrative by saying the strike is union intransigence rather than what we know to be the truth.

Lynch has captured the narrative of this dispute and ( enougth of ) the public aren't falling for the usual Tory nonsense this time. I suspect the Tories are also worried about NHS strikes. Difficult to go in hard on the people you had the sheeps out clapping in the street for not 18 months ago!

 

[winks]

The ticket offices is not the battle the RMT will win especially when you consider they tried striking over that when TfL decided to do away with ticket offices on the London Underground and those ended up closing anyway.

Agree with this. The RMT need to admit they aren’t winning this argument, especially when the data shows less passengers using Ticket Offices.

The “reform”issues (as the govt puts it) seem far more concerned with NR than the TOCS.

 

[AVK17]

Don't know if anyone else noticed but Harper was on the Andrew Neil show this evening (Channel 4 17:45). Mostly more of the same, but I'll say one thing for him, he does turn up and doesn't dodge (most of) the questions.

He was on Radio 4's Any Questions on Friday night too, saying that the DfT has nothing to do with the dispute and that it's up each of the TOCs to negotiate their own pay settlements. Which is, of course, a dreadful lie.

 

[jon0844]

He was on Radio 4's Any Questions on Friday night too, saying that the DfT has nothing to do with the dispute and that it's up each of the TOCs to negotiate their own pay settlements. Which is, of course, a dreadful lie.

Especially if it's true that a potential deal was all but agreed this week, and could have been offered to members to vote, but someone above stepped in to stop it for fear of it giving hope/bargaining power to the NHS staff.

 

[brad465]

Agree with this. The RMT need to admit they aren’t winning this argument, especially when the data shows less passengers using Ticket Offices.

The “reform”issues (as the govt puts it) seem far more concerned with NR than the TOCS.

I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not the first on here to say something like this: I'd get on board with ticket offices closing for national rail if the whole fares system was made simpler, self-service machines become more reliable and smart/e-tickets are well established and also reliable. TfL I think got away with it because of the ease of Oyster/contactless being widespread and well established, the rest of the rail network isn't there just yet.

 

[Class 170101]

Correct, but only in as much as it’s cheaper than bringing Sundays inside. However, at TOCs where Sundays are worked on a voluntary basis, changing to committed Sundays will not save money as these will still be worked as overtime at whatever rate prevails at that company

But would remove barbeque Sundays which what the Government wants to stop.

 

[O L Leigh]

But would remove barbeque Sundays which what the Government wants to stop.

Yes, but that’s the only thing it would achieve. It’s not a cost saving measure.

 

[Bald Rick]

I’ve yet to see any reforms tabled. No-ones even talking to us. Surely it’s pointless to continue to insist on something happening that appears not to even exist.

Again much of this lays with Network Rail. Like you I’ve heard nothing of reforms working for a TOC.

Plenty of reforms in TOC world, as later posts suggest. All being talked though with the RMT, and have been for months. The rules of the game, though, ar that this isn’t explained to the workforce, which I find very frustrating.

Sundays inside wouldn’t save money.

Some of this isn’t about money, it’s about doing the right thing for passengers, in this case being sure of providing a service every day of the week.

As a rail user rather than an employee I'd consider that closing ticket offices would be a seriously retrograde step and would certainly make travel more difficult for a not inconsidersble proportion of the population if my local station is anything to go by.

Which is your local station? At the stations I use, I see several open ticket office windows not being used whenever I walk through.

I think it’s only a matter of time before ticket offices at many stations either a) disappear completely or b) are changed to a multi-disciplinary role. This is one change, that, certainly in the long-run, is only going to go one way due to the change in demographics and technology.

agreed. And I’m. Sure the RMT know that, even if they don’t acknowledge it publicly.

We've had massive house price inflation for donkeys years. Why is now any different ?

Because we are about to see a sustained fall in house prices. Maybe a 20% ‘readjustment’, until interest rates start to fall.

How much of that 16 billion went to multinationals profit.

how much do you think?

 

[Thirteen]

Especially if it's true that a potential deal was all but agreed this week, and could have been offered to members to vote, but someone above stepped in to stop it for fear of it giving hope/bargaining power to the NHS staff.

I have my theory that someone from the DfT leaked that info about the Treasury blocking a deal in order to get some leverage.