I personality find it unbelievable that any 7 day a week operation dosn't contract its operatives accordingly. Good job hospitals, firemen and the like dont work like that. Perhaps its some legacy from the past.
What a mess the railway industrial relations are in.
K
It is not about industrial relations. I was in a reasonably senior managerial role until quite recently. It was a 24/7 role with Sundays outside the working week. Like the vast majority of railway jobs this is simply down to economics of having less staff on the books. Being a manager there was a fair amount of pressure on me to work Sundays with veiled threats should I decline. I would have been very happy to have had that pressure removed by having Sundays in the working week and that's why the emergency services rosters work, they do not rely, in the most part, on enforced overtime.
I have been working shifts on the railways for 36 years this month and every one of the 600+ Sundays I have ever worked in those years have has been outside the working week and therefore on what, is most peoples day off.
600 x 8 hour shifts = 4,800 hours, I am being generous as most Sunday shifts have been 12 hours.
4,800 hours split into a 37 hour week gives you 129 weeks of work.
That means in any other industry my overtime would have been covered by a full time employee for TWO YEARS worth of my career.
It is simply not financially viable to employ the extra people, hiring, firing, training costs.
The drivers and conductors in the North West involved in this thread are almost certainly on 35 hour weeks which makes my figures even further off and finances needed to cover Sundays higher.