www.unitetheunion.org
Never before have I observed fitters leaving to work as guards. That is a sign that a reasonably skilled trades pay has been dipping for some time. Good on them.
If the date of the settlement is earlier this year and the dispute has been ongoing for a while, the current rate of CPI isn't necessarily relevant, but instead RPI at the reference date, which will have been higher before inflation rates started to reduce. They may also be taking into account pay settlements in previous years.
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk
If Unite were in dispute with TOCs over maintenence staff I'd say no, but they're not. It would provide a clean slate.
Thanks for the correction - having looked it up you're quite right.
So you're saying that although the GWR Class 802s aren't under the Agility Trains contract the conditions of that contract apply to that fleet? Clearly an arrangement that's not fit for purpose!
Thank you Mark.
They have been in dispute with TOCs though, any directly-employed maintenance staff will have had the same lack of pay rises as drivers/guards etc.
Unite members settled at the same time as the TSSA, about a year ago.
Unlimited tax payers funds? Are you sure about that, can you offer some evidence of these unlimited funds? I know as a taxpayer mine are certainly limited, although to be fair the price of some rail travel can feel like we must have unlimited funds...
On a contract of this length there will be some annual contract price adjustment to reflect inflation depends what index they have used so they will have had access to taxpayer funds and probably a lot more than the TOCs get.
I imagine the responder is implying that you are parroting the government line and suggesting that you are the Secretary of State for Transport
Yes, which is strange, really. For those people broadly on the right of politics, and in favour of capitalism and a market economy, you would think that a group of staff marketising their skills and labour to maximise their income would be a good thing, not a bad one
Well then the responder is very wrong. I am just a regular user of the railway who is getting increasingly fed up of the various parts of the industry that think they deserve so much more than everyone else, yet seem to manage to deliver a worsening product. Now I realise that is a controversial point of view, but as a user of the product it is exactly how I feel, and I suspect I'm not alone especially given that the industry has had to be bailed out time and again by the taxpayers.
When a dispute starts with the premise that a higher offer than many other people around got or could hope for is "poor", then yes some people might question it. And it is probably worth remembering at this point that companies tend to pass on their costs to the end users. So if, for example Hitachi staff got a well above inflation pay rise, that would be passed onto the customers, in this case the TOCs or leasing companies. They would then eventually pass the cost onto the end users, us poor schmucks that still use the railways. Which is why sometimes people question these disputes.
I know what you were referring to, and I also know that you know tax income is not unlimited.
This entity covers the new build operation, signalling systems as well as the maintenance of the trains as a supplier to the owners of the train fleet so may not be a true reflection of pay at the workshop level given the diversity of activities. The trains are owned by separate entities Hitachi Rail (East) [LNER], Hitachi Rail (West) [GWR] who make payments to Hitachi Rail for services rendered. These entities receive payment based on delivering x diagrams daily and get penalised if they don't perform so last years cracking debacle hurt them badly on penalty payments and wiped out profits. However, they've both bounced back strongly this year and are very profitable despite the future liabilities for remediating the cracking although thats a function of the stupid contract let by DafT.Unite are being very selective with their data quotes. They have used extracts of the published accounts, note 7
Note 7 actually says wages and salaries £162.3m (£139.5m in 2022). Employee numbers 2705 (2558 in 2022), which is exactly a 10% pay rise per employee last year
Can also work out the average employee gets salary of £59,995 plus £5563 company pension contribution, so average package over £65k
I am all for the unions protecting the poorly paid, or for doing a fair job at looking after better paid employees, but the way they are presenting this as the employees need extra pay to cover basic cost of living rises annoys me.
Link to Accounts used filed 20th November 2023
HITACHI RAIL LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK
HITACHI RAIL LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
Yes ! A true "market" if ever there was one.
Or they could, perhaps, pay slightly less to their shareholders as dividends - just a suggestion...
Now in principle I would agree. However this is how capitalism works, people invest, companies spend, customers pay, investors get their money back and some. If you have a better idea as to how to finance private I'm sure plenty of people will be interested.
Because as they’ve shown recently with Go North East and tried to show with Stadler before members voted to accept an offer preventing the strike, Unite have zero regard for ordinary people and seem to take joy in wreaking havoc on peoples lives to make political points.
How it tends to work is that the private sector tend to run infrastructure into the ground and then expect the public sector to pick up the tab.
To be fair, seeing what Unite are proposing in other disputes that might not be far from what happens.
