One thing I've noticed in my little corner of the railway, as someone who has to arrange cover for sickness out-of-hours as an on call manager, is that staff are generally a lot more reluctant to do overtime shifts than they used to be twenty years ago. Willingness to work overtime was gradually reducing over the last ten years but has plummeted off a cliff since Covid. In 2003 you would always find someone to cover a shift at short notice but these days it's usually touch and go, as person after person either doesn't answer their phone or turns it down flat. There are still a few greedy grabbers who would cheerfully sell their own grandparents for a 12 hour Sunday but for the most part a lot of staff aren't really bothered for overtime and would rather just have their days off instead.
Years ago railwaymen in the wages grades needed to work a few rest days or Sundays to bulk up their payslip at the end of the month but as railway industry wages have increased the relative value of overtime has decreased - quite simply a lot of staff don't see the point when most of their overtime money goes to the tax man. I think that Covid made people realise that there's more to life than working. In particular, quality time with the family around christmas has a value greater than money.
The solution to this problem is to bring Sunday inside the working week. This, of course, would require increased staff numbers and a significant pay increase so it's very unlikely to happen under this government!
I think covid was quite a reset for a lot of people as well , with it changing relationships with personal finances and peoples appreciation of their free time with friends and family .
And tbh even before covid , saturdays were always a struggle to get anyone to volunteer for overtime , especially in december with the sorts of behavoir you were expected to deal with from the inebriated once a year drinkers .
Given that is not a sustainable position, it underlines they just need to rewrite the contracts of employment so that a 7 day service is inside the working week and proper pensionable pay. Anyone who doesn't want to work for a 7 day a week passenger railway is welcome to seek alternative employment driving school buses instead.
If the TOC fails, then everybody loses their shirt and their pension above the minimum state guarantee
If only it were that easy to just "rewrite" contracts . In reality if you want to bring sundays inside the working week you need an uplift of staff numbers by about a third .
Your second proposal about making TOC employees susceptible to loss of livlihoods and pensions if a TOC fails would just make the industry terribly unattractive for people to work in meaning anybody with any experience and quality would just leave , there are already difficulties recruiting staff in some roles , including key ones to run an operation like planning and control .
Seems youve no idea about the actual realities of retaining quality staff in this industry .
From the business world, £100 is a puny incentive more applicable to the 1970s. especially when half of it then goes in tax.
Precisely , its almost insulting
I wonder how many managers and senior ones particularly would come in and work until 1am christmas morning for £100 extra .
), so the reason the solution isn’t available is entirely down to the government not wanting to pay for it (the unions’ objection is to committed Sundays, which means they become enforced overtime, and the worst of all worlds for employees because they cannot be taken as annual leave, are not pensionable etc.)