ASLEF - LNER drivers to strike every Sat & Sun for 3 months from 31 Aug - Now called off

[Falcon1200]

Ringing people at home when they may have their phone on for news of ill or elderly relatives and then trying to put the squeeze on to get them to cover jobs is pretty low and actually starts to get into “endangering the safety of the railway” territory because you want drivers not to come to the job rushed or stressed.

I explained in Post #218 why I phoned off-duty staff, sometimes in the early hours, and asked them to come into work. If they said 'no thanks' that was the end of the call, and if they had showed themselves in advance as unavailable they would not be called in the first place. Does such a system not apply elsewhere on the railway, including LNER? I would agree however that if Drivers are being repeatedly asked despite having already refused, or made themselves unavailable, that is unacceptable.

 

[357]

I explained in Post #218 why I phoned off-duty staff, sometimes in the early hours, and asked them to come into work. If they said 'no thanks' that was the end of the call, and if they had showed themselves in advance as unavailable they would not be called in the first place. Does such a system not apply elsewhere on the railway, including LNER? I would agree however that if Drivers are being repeatedly asked despite having already refused, or made themselves unavailable, that is unacceptable.

I'm generally seen as quite militant and I have no problem being asked about overtime! As I said above though, depending on what I'm working and the time of day a text is preferred.

If I ever had a manager repeatedly calling me like I hear has been the case here, I'd WhatsApp them a video of me opening a bottle of vodka - that should stop them asking me

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

I'm generally seen as quite militant and I have no problem being asked about overtime! As I said above though, depending on what I'm working and the time of day a text is preferred.

If I ever had a manager repeatedly calling me like I hear has been the case here, I'd WhatsApp them a video of me opening a bottle of vodka - that should stop them asking me

Given this article in the Times this morning its behind a paywall but the headline is

Workers who are consistently contacted by their bosses outside normal working hours may get thousands of pounds more in compensation at employment tribunals under plans being considered by the government

May further muddy the waters here about LNER carrying on this practice.

 

[Falcon1200]

I don't agree with calling people at home

If calling people at home was no longer allowed, how would a short-notice call-off, as I described in Post #218, be covered?

a text is preferred.

Understand, however with a text the sender doesn't know whether the person being contacted has received and read the message!

 

[357]

If calling people at home was no longer allowed, how would a short-notice call-off, as I described in Post #218, be covered?



Understand, however with a text the sender doesn't know whether the person being contacted has received and read the message!

It shouldn't be assumed someone is coming in unless they say yes.

Short notice sickness etc should be covered with spare turns.

The fact all the spares are always preallocated because the company don't employ enough staff is the issue here.

 

[12LDA28C]

Understand, however with a text the sender doesn't know whether the person being contacted has received and read the message!

You can certainly tell these days whether a text has been received and read, although a degree of assumption would need to be made as to whether it had been read by the owner of the phone or someone else.

 

[anothertyke]

It shouldn't be assumed someone is coming in unless they say yes.

Short notice sickness etc should be covered with spare turns.

The fact all the spares are always preallocated because the company don't employ enough staff is the issue here.

So is the union's objective related to the short term or long term? If the short term then does that imply LNER going down the XC route and temporarily removing timetabled work, say for example the Leeds-Harrogate legs, so as to create the spares?

My other question is this. Much has been said about the pay dispute creating a toxic atmosphere. Given that the pay dispute has been settled, or at least recommended, do you think the vote for strike action would have been different if taken today? And is there hope of talks taking place in a more constructive environment now?

 

[mpthomson]

Given this article in the Times this morning its behind a paywall but the headline is


May further muddy the waters here about LNER carrying on this practice.

This is unlikely to come in due to the disproportionate effect it would have on (at least) the NHS and social care settings.

 

[Clarence Yard]

I don't agree with calling people at home but I think that argument is a bit of a stretch.

The argument I put forward is the kind of thinking I, as a senior manager, would go through before agreeing to such a practise because rule no 1 in setting policy is think safety. If I had an agreement that staff would only be contacted if they wish to be available for work, then I would stick to that agreement and also stick to their preferred method of contact on the contact sheet, not authorising the pestering of them by every means possible.

What I wouldn’t do is put the squeeze on them to come in and I certainly wouldn’t be authorising the ringing of others who said they did not want to be contacted and putting the squeeze on them too.

If I found out that a manager had, on their own initiative, been employing such heavy handed tactics, they would be “put right for the future”.

 

[Lewisham2221]

You can certainly tell these days whether a text has been received and read, although a degree of assumption would need to be made as to whether it had been read by the owner of the phone or someone else.

AFAIK that's only if it's been sent via RCS chat, or iPhone to iPhone with iMessage. If you disable RCS chat, or send a message from Android to iPhone or vice versa there no confirmation of read or received.

That said, in this scenario, there's no need for confirmation of it's been read or received. Ask the question, asking the driver to call back if it's a yes.

 

[ainsworth74]

AFAIK that's only if it's been sent via RCS chat, or iPhone to iPhone with iMessage. If you disable RCS chat, or send a message from Android to iPhone or vice versa there no confirmation of read or received.

Or WhatsApp, that works cross platform.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Or WhatsApp, that works cross platform.

Or any other messaging app I suppose. But I was working on the basis of an SMS message being sent from a company issued mobile phone. Either way, there is no need for confirmation that the driver has received/read the message.

 

[ainsworth74]

Or any other messaging app I suppose. But I was working on the basis of an SMS message being sent from a company issued mobile phone.

Ah gotcha, I must confess I have no real idea what the preferred method of contact is between train crew and control/management beyond phone calls!

Either way, there is no need for confirmation that the driver has received/read the message.

Yep no argument there, easiest way to operate is if they don't reply that they're not interested.

 

[66701GBRF]

If calling people at home was no longer allowed, how would a short-notice call-off, as I described in Post #218, be covered?

With respect, that is a manager problem, not someone who's home on their rest days. Feel free to phone or leave a message on my work phone or email, but if you were calling me at 0500 on a personal number we'd being having words the next time we see each other.

 

[Bletchleyite]

With respect, that is a manager problem, not someone who's home on their rest days. Feel free to phone or leave a message on my work phone or email, but if you were calling me at 0500 on a personal number we'd being having words the next time we see each other.

Surely the solution here is for those who would be happy to receive such calls to be able to agree to do so and those who are not can be left alone? One thing I find a bit odd about the railway approach to things like this is how it has to be the same for everyone when not everyone has the same desires or approaches.

 

[TreacleMiller]

If you are flagged as unavailable on rest days, nearly every driver at the company is, you shouldn't be being contacted. End of story.

 

[Lewisham2221]

Surely the solution here is for those who would be happy to receive such calls to be able to agree to do so and those who are not can be left alone? One thing I find a bit odd about the railway approach to things like this is how it has to be the same for everyone when not everyone has the same desires or approaches.

I may be reading between the lines or misinterpreting things, but I get the feeling that this is the problem - there are ways for drivers to indicate if they do or do not wish to be contacted on rest days, but this is often being ignored? Perhaps @TreacleMiller could confirm?

 

[officewalla]

Were LNER offering the same rates that they were paying managers to non-union members willing to do RDW?

Don't know about LNER but my TOC preferred not to use staff drivers on strike days or for RDW. On a strike day, a non union member would be made spare whilst the managers went driving. Most curious use of competent drivers.

 

[paul1609]

Surely the solution here is for those who would be happy to receive such calls to be able to agree to do so and those who are not can be left alone? One thing I find a bit odd about the railway approach to things like this is how it has to be the same for everyone when not everyone has the same desires or approaches.

On the heritage railway system HOPS volunteer crew are asked to indicate their availability 2 months in advance, there are three response options, "Yes" meaning you are bidding for a turn on that day, "?" meaning you don't want to bid for that day but if push came to shove you might be available or "no" you're not available on that day.
If there is a shortage for any reason the roster clerks will first publish it by email and if that's unsuccessful they will ring round volunteers who have indicated "yes" but didn't get a turn, then "?", then those who didn't return any availability. people who entered "no" wont be contacted.

 

[woodmally1979]

That's not far off. But there is a lot going on beyond that.

To be clear, this post is simply my own thoughts and a few my own experiences - not those of my colleagues and I certainly don't speak for ASLEF.

The official reason for the strike action (which I voted for) has already been detailed by ASLEF. My summised understanding is that this boils down to breach of rostering agreements and failing to follow the agreed to processes that ASLEF and LNER/VTEC agreed to follow.

This is exactly what has been happening.

The company has certainly tried to ignore rostering agreements, repeatedly now for some time.

There's been mandate and support for this action for some time.

TO BE CLEAR TO MAIL READERS, ITS NOTHING TO DO WITH PAY. I can't speak for others but a RDW payment / agreement wouldn't make me turn a blind eye to what's been happening either.



The railway runs on a lot of goodwill due to its nature. Without employing at least 2/3 drivers at every depot per AM and PM to sit spare small delays can cause big problems when the workforce isn't being flexible this makes delays worse.

Simply put it's costly to build in a lot of redundancy and I suspect the public would be likely pretty annoyed to see people earning 60-80k a year sat on their arse 1/2 days a month.

As a result of the previously "assumed" goodwill drying up, day to day operation has gotten worse with relationships between drivers and DTMs and some individuals at both the ROC and board level are at low point. In some instances that has resulted in quite poor behavior from management. All to often that's resulted in some at the company "demanding" what isn't agreed to. They know this and try it on anyway.

There has certainly been instances of drivers being dragged through disciplinary processes only for there to be found that there is no wrong doing.

The we have day to day poor management and generally toxic behaviors. Some examples I've experienced would be.

- Being sent to the "wrong place" when spare, or sent on conflicting jobs. (I've been chasited for being exactly where I was meant to be and sent to by management - whilst booked on for duty).

- Having start times changed without agreed notice.

- Threatened with "escalation" when refusing to carry out additional work that's not on my booked diagram (and that's happened to many more than me). Just what you want to hear when you're undertaking safety critical duties.

- Called on my work mobile at the small hours of the morning on rest days. I switch mine off, some don't.

- Had training / assessments delayed due to managers working overtime (driving).

- Witnessed managers / Trainers being paid £500 for approximately 20 minutes work to fill a small gap unable to be plugged with spare drivers or cover diagrams.

- Had at least one assessment moved to suit a managers overtime - IE they got paid for the OT and I was driving.

- A manager walking into the mess room and broadcasting the size of their payslip for said payments.

- Being publicly blamed for the cancellation of services that have been planned to be cancelled in advance (stood on a platform waiting for a set with my crew only to have "Cancelled due to a shortage of train drivers" announced as the reason for it being canned) You can imagine what myself and crew dealt with on the platforms.

- Being told to carry out non risked assessed movements.

- Being asked and encouraged to cut breaks short when arriving late into a destination by local staff who have been "told to ask" and themselves have been pressured into doing what they don't agree with.

I could go on...

One or two "not agreed to requests" once in a while is one thing, but it's at the point where something happens on an almost daily basis, if not to me then a friend. Couple that to managers being heavily "Influenced" to work against drivers..... It's no wonder there is a "poor" atmosphere that has certainly become toxic. That was well within the companies power to control and they haven't.

Firstly huge thank you for spending the time to post this and giving us an insight into why this dispute is going on. I would really like to point out that my anger is not directed at you but rather that you have had to do this for us to get an answer. The problem with unions is they dont communicate the problems clearly. They use flowery language like break down of communication. If they had bothered to tell us the stories like this then the public I am sure would be behind them. Instead they shoot themselves in the foot and people get angry at the unions. Meaning I have to come on here to a railforum website to find an answer that I should be able to find much easier. Also why has it taken 2 years! for Aslef to begin strike action. Surely this should have been done sooner. The optics are terrible so near to the pay dispute being resolved. id be pretty angry if my union took two years to get its act together to resolve this.

Its not the first time Unions dont communicate properly either causing them to lose support. I remember the guard being removed on Northern Rail and they were saying it isnt about jobs its about your safety. Had they said it is about jobs people would have been more sympathetic because we all are when people are at risk of losing their income.

I think the unions all the time leave an open goal to the right wing press by just not being honest with people. Honesty would win support and stop the need from me going to page 11 of a thread on railforum. And stop the need from you having to do the job that union bosses should be doing and that is explaining why its that bad.

Again I want to reiterate I really appreciate your post and I fully now support the strike but had Aslef told us what was going on I would have done much sooner.

 

[Starmill]

Use of personal telephone numbers for work is poor form in any line of business in my view. It's only acceptable if there's no work number that can be used (e.g. someone's work phone is broken or they're new and don't have one yet), or, as a last resort, in some urgent, exceptional circumstance. There's not that many TOCs that don't provide a work telephone number now as so many staff need to use a phone, at least occasionally, for work. Two phones in your bag also means you have some back up opportunity to call in an emergency situation.

Most office workers will try to avoid letting people from work have their personal number, unless it's someone who is a personal friend too, or at least keep the number of people who have it as small as possible.

 

[Clarence Yard]

ASLEF has taken strike action before on this issue (at least two one day strikes announced were earlier this year, iirc?) but management has seemingly treated this as a minor inconvenience and continued as before.

 

[ainsworth74]

ASLEF has taken strike action before on this issue (at least two one day strikes announced were earlier this year, iirc?) but management has seemingly treated this as a minor inconvenience and continued as before.

Which is presumably one of the reasons why ASLEF hit the nuclear button with this strike action.

 

[Carlisle]

I think it's pretty plain that hiring a replacement is necessary for a settlement. However, is it sufficient?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Aug 2024 ==

Ok I can see the reasoning behind that but as others have said a similar dispute exists at Northern, so how many senior managers can simply be ditched.

 

[Lewisham2221]

ASLEF has taken strike action before on this issue (at least two one day strikes announced were earlier this year, iirc?) but management has seemingly treated this as a minor inconvenience and continued as before.

Which is presumably one of the reasons why ASLEF hit the nuclear button with this strike action.

I daresay, against the backdrop of the national strikes surrounding the pay deal, any further "odd day" strike action was always going to be pretty ineffective. They would've probably needed to go for "all out" strike action for enough people to sit up and listen. Likewise now, if the pay deal gets agreed and staff at all the TOCs stop striking, but LNER drivers alone are still striking, it rather highlights the cause somewhat more.

 

[MikeWM]

ASLEF has taken strike action before on this issue (at least two one day strikes announced were earlier this year, iirc?) but management has seemingly treated this as a minor inconvenience and continued as before.

There was one on Saturday April 20th when I was trying to travel from Newcastle to Peterborough. Doing TPE to York and then picking up an LNER York starter wasn't too inconvenient, the York starter was little busy but nothing unbearable. I'd imagine with LNER that the strikes on Sunday will be more disruptive (and those things that do run will be rather cosy) than those on Saturday, however.

 

[12LDA28C]

Firstly huge thank you for spending the time to post this and giving us an insight into why this dispute is going on. I would really like to point out that my anger is not directed at you but rather that you have had to do this for us to get an answer. The problem with unions is they dont communicate the problems clearly. They use flowery language like break down of communication. If they had bothered to tell us the stories like this then the public I am sure would be behind them. Instead they shoot themselves in the foot and people get angry at the unions. Meaning I have to come on here to a railforum website to find an answer that I should be able to find much easier. Also why has it taken 2 years! for Aslef to begin strike action. Surely this should have been done sooner. The optics are terrible so near to the pay dispute being resolved. id be pretty angry if my union took two years to get its act together to resolve this.

Its not the first time Unions dont communicate properly either causing them to lose support. I remember the guard being removed on Northern Rail and they were saying it isnt about jobs its about your safety. Had they said it is about jobs people would have been more sympathetic because we all are when people are at risk of losing their income.

I think the unions all the time leave an open goal to the right wing press by just not being honest with people. Honesty would win support and stop the need from me going to page 11 of a thread on railforum. And stop the need from you having to do the job that union bosses should be doing and that is explaining why its that bad.

Again I want to reiterate I really appreciate your post and I fully now support the strike but had Aslef told us what was going on I would have done much sooner.

Welcome to the Forum!

Whilst I can understand your frustration, the details of what has precipitated this action is a matter for the drivers, ASLEF and LNER management, it's not really anybody else's business which is probably why the details have not been leaked to the press, meaning the papers have to resort to making up nonsense headlines about 'Spanish practices' and so on. Why should it be for public consumption? How much detail should be provided, in your opinion? Should we also be given the names of specific managers involved, or individual drivers that have raised a grievance?

It's an internal dispute which should be resolved internally. Hopefully that can happen prior to any action being taken.

 

[YorkshireBear]

Welcome to the Forum!

Whilst I can understand your frustration, the details of what has precipitated this action is a matter for the drivers, ASLEF and LNER management, it's not really anybody else's business which is probably why the details have not been leaked to the press, meaning the papers have to resort to making up nonsense headlines about 'Spanish practices' and so on. Why should it be for public consumption? How much detail should be provided, in your opinion? Should we also be given the names of specific managers involved, or individual drivers that have raised a grievance?

It's an internal dispute which should be resolved internally. Hopefully that can happen prior to any action being taken.

I would personally say once you say you are going to strike 2 days per week every week for 8 weeks you lose that right for it to be purely internal. It becomes a public issue at that point.

Shame LNER let it get that far.

 

[woodmally1979]

Welcome to the Forum!

Whilst I can understand your frustration, the details of what has precipitated this action is a matter for the drivers, ASLEF and LNER management, it's not really anybody else's business which is probably why the details have not been leaked to the press, meaning the papers have to resort to making up nonsense headlines about 'Spanish practices' and so on. Why should it be for public consumption? How much detail should be provided, in your opinion? Should we also be given the names of specific managers involved, or individual drivers that have raised a grievance?

It's an internal dispute which should be resolved internally. Hopefully that can happen prior to any action being taken.

How much detail should be provided, in your opinion?

Well simply what the poster I referenced put. What they included is enough information for me to understand how bad its got. But not too much for us to break GDPR or data protection of the people involved. No more no less.

What ASLEF put out was absolutely nothing but this kind poster posted the right amount of detail to satisfy everyone and not breaching any confidence.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 19 Aug 2024 ==

I would personally say once you say you are going to strike 2 days per week every week for 8 weeks you lose that right for it to be purely internal. It becomes a public issue at that point.

Shame LNER let it get that far.

I dont entirely agree. We have seen by the lovely poster who gave a detailed breakdown as to how bad its got do so as to not identify anyone. It pursuaded me as a passenger to agree with the strike (in principle) but not to identify anyone.

I still think its bad timing why they left it two years before going nuclear is beyond me. Thats bad it should have been strike action sooner.

 

[londonbridge]

With respect, that is a manager problem, not someone who's home on their rest days. Feel free to phone or leave a message on my work phone or email, but if you were calling me at 0500 on a personal number we'd being having words the next time we see each other.

I’m not a railway employee so mods can delete if you feel we’re drifting off topic here. I finished my late shift at 11.00pm, supervisor locked up the store, we went home. 6:10 next morning early shift supervisor phoned me asking if I’d taken a particular set of keys home. Turned out I had, so I made arrangements to get them down to the store asap. If management aren’t supposed to be calling you out of hours/on your rest day, was he supposed to just break the cabinet open and then have the expense of new locks through not being allowed to check whether one of the evening colleagues had, inadvertently or otherwise, taken the keys home?