We know this. There are threads that cover this specifically. I think the key to this thread is about why they are allowed to get away with it but also about why they are allowed to blame engineering works when it isn’t anything to do with them.
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Why are Northern allowed to cancel Sunday Services seemingly at will?
- Thread starter Puffing Devil
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We know this. There are threads that cover this specifically. I think the key to this thread is about why they are allowed to get away with it but also about why they are allowed to blame engineering works when it isn’t anything to do with them.
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RailUK Forums
What about them? Bob has a contract that says he doesn't need to work on Sundays and as it's his only guaranteed time off he prefers to spend it with his family, why should he care about all these thousands of people? It's not his fault.
Everyone can see this needs to change, but if we are suddenly bothered about these thousands of people right now then the only immediate solution is to rip up his contract and force a new one on him, along with the hundreds on the same contract. Then there will be no trains on Sunday anyway (or many other days) because the unions will bring Northern to it's knees.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Or you start a process whereby all new recruits work Sundays - every Sunday unless taking annual leave or themselves arranging a shift swap - and as people move on and retire it will filter through.
But for some reason, the Unions want everyone on the exact same T&Cs despite this killing workforce flexibility, not being the case anywhere else, and not really disadvantaging anyone in an existing role, because they keep their present T&Cs. OK, over time the Sunday overtime will reduce, but overtime is not contractual (the TOC is not and should not be obliged to offer it so far as I know), so tough, but again as things filter through it will be a slow decline not a dead stop.
bramling
Veteran Member
Having people on different conditions is terrible for morale. It really isn’t something which should be pursued except as a dire last resort (one may argue that Sunday services do represent such an important need, but that’s a value judgement for which there’s no right or wrong answer!).
From a rostering point of view it would be a nightmare, plus with turnover at some depots being low in some locations change would only be achieved at a glacial pace.
Is it really worth it for a small number of low-value journeys?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I can see that having people paid different amounts, or receiving different numbers of holiday days, or different benefits, is terrible for morale.
But I can't see why simply employing people to work on days on which the existing workforce demonstrably do not wish to commit to working (otherwise the problem would not exist) would be in any way an issue. Wasn't that the solution for the Night Tube in the end, to employ drivers specifically for it? OK, it wouldn't be viable to employ Sunday-only drivers, but it would presumably be viable to employ drivers (other traincrew are of course available and required
) who worked Sundays plus N other days each week.It's not really different conditions in a wider sense, it's just like some businesses, rather than a rota, employ people who always work mornings or always work nights.
If that is felt to be the case, then withdraw the Sunday services entirely. It is not acceptable to advertise them and then not actually operate them reliably due to the inability of TOCs to organise / staff to accept a contractual setup to ensure their proper delivery.
It is not acceptable to advertise a service knowing full well you barely have any chance of delivering it. That option should not even be on the table; it should be considered a serious breach of franchise with heavy financial penalties which would make it worth the TOCs' while to solve the issue properly. (That is, it should cost the TOC substantially more than they save by not operating the service or by putting buses on instead).
dk1
Veteran Member
The union would never tolerate it. Would go against all working agreements. Unity is strength. We've been here so many times before. No two tier working arrangements are going to happen any time soon thankfully.I can see that having people paid different amounts, or receiving different numbers of holiday days, or different benefits, is terrible for morale.
But I can't see why simply employing people to work on days on which the existing workforce demonstrably do not wish to commit to working (otherwise the problem would not exist) would be in any way an issue. Wasn't that the solution for the Night Tube in the end, to employ drivers specifically for it? OK, it wouldn't be viable to employ Sunday-only drivers, but it would presumably be viable to employ drivers (other traincrew are of course available and required
It's not really different conditions in a wider sense, it's just like some businesses, rather than a rota, employ people who always work mornings or always work nights.
If that is felt to be the case, then withdraw the Sunday services entirely. It is not acceptable to advertise them and then not actually operate them reliably due to the inability of TOCs to organise / staff to accept a contractual setup to ensure their proper delivery.
It is not acceptable to advertise a service knowing full well you barely have any chance of delivering it. That option should not even be on the table; it should be considered a serious breach of franchise with heavy financial penalties which would make it worth the TOCs' while to solve the issue properly. (That is, it should cost the TOC substantially more than they save by not operating the service or by putting buses on instead).
If that is the TU attitude, rather than constructive negotiation, then as a taxpayer and TU member l have to say that doing to the rail unions what was done to the NUM is well overdue.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Then the passenger continues to lose. I'm sorry, but I think this is well beyond the kind of thing Unions should be attempting to defend against.
Well at the end of the day you cannot and will not be allowed to hold the country to ransom. Did you really learn no lessons from the 70s and 80s. If that means mass ssckings and zero benefits if you don't sign the new contract then guess what will happen. Oh and bloody great big fines on the rail unions if they ignore court orders.
If BREXIT happens that will be even easier to implement. No European courts to appeal to and TU bashing is the one thing that would unite all strands of the Tory party.
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Lose public support and play into the politicians hands. My language was perhaps less polished than you but that is what l was trying to say. That if anything should be the lesson of Scargill.
dk1
Veteran Member
Personally no as I'm not that old but whether you like it or not that's how it works. I see no change on the distant horizon either.
dk1
Veteran Member
Mass sackings
I voted for BREXIT too. Time will tell.Sounds very like the argument for cutting taxes, "If I don't use a service why should I contribute to it through tax?"
We certainly shouldn't be going along the route of forcing high fares - or forcing no travel - on those of us who may want or need to use the train on Sunday because they can't drive or don't own a car. Do that and I suspect you would get protests and complaints in pretty large numbers. Better to just accept the fact that drivers wish to be paid more to work on Sunday and get the needed money out of taxation than hit the passengers directly. That way, the expense is shared amongst all of us - far fairer.
This whole Sunday reduction thing does seem to be very much a British thing IMX. On the continent, typically, the Sunday service appears to have the standard Mon-Sat off-peak pattern, perhaps with a later start. Even Greece with the state its economy is in is able to run the same service on the Larissa-Thessaloniki stopping service, for instance, on Sunday as on Mon-Sat with early arrivals too, certainly an arrival by 9am.
Contrast that with trying to get into Birmingham from Redditch before 10.03 on a Sunday morning...
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nr758123
Member
How did this turn into a union-bashing thread?
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Because it appears that the Unions are getting in the way of all three of the viable solutions to the problem, which are:
1. Bring Sunday into the working week for everyone (perhaps keep it paid at whatever * time it is at the moment, but make it mandatory on a rota unless you swap it)
2. Employ new staff to cover Sunday if not everyone wants it; obviously those who wish to switch to those contracts could be offered that if they wanted
3. Staff to commit to and work the necessary number of Sundays to make the present system viable, and not to use it as a form of "unofficial industrial action" or indeed change their minds about working when they see that the Easter weekend is going to be atypically nice (as it was).
dk1
Veteran Member
Jealousy, bitterness, naivety? You name it. Always the same on here in my experience.
bramling
Veteran Member
I don’t think it’s the unions which are the issue here. As regards (3) it doesn’t take unions to make people decide “I’m going to ring in sick this weekend as I fancy a nice few days with my kids”. Neither is this sort of thing unique to the railway industry, although of course your typical nine to fivers don’t have this issue as they get every weekend and bank holiday off, rain or shine.
As regards (1) and (2) again it’s not really the unions who are against 7-day rosters. The big issue is that it needs more drivers, as you now have a whole days worth of duties which have to go on the roster. Depending on how many services there are to run, this may be considerable. No union is ever going to be against something which offers a hefty increase in potential members! From an industry point of view as well you save on RDW but have to pay salaries instead, plus all the costs associated with increasing the headcount: recruitment, training, uniform, pension contributions, management resource, admin, competence assurance to name but a few things.
bramling
Veteran Member
I can see that having people paid different amounts, or receiving different numbers of holiday days, or different benefits, is terrible for morale.
But I can't see why simply employing people to work on days on which the existing workforce demonstrably do not wish to commit to working (otherwise the problem would not exist) would be in any way an issue. Wasn't that the solution for the Night Tube in the end, to employ drivers specifically for it? OK, it wouldn't be viable to employ Sunday-only drivers, but it would presumably be viable to employ drivers (other traincrew are of course available and required
It's not really different conditions in a wider sense, it's just like some businesses, rather than a rota, employ people who always work mornings or always work nights.
If that is felt to be the case, then withdraw the Sunday services entirely. It is not acceptable to advertise them and then not actually operate them reliably due to the inability of TOCs to organise / staff to accept a contractual setup to ensure their proper delivery.
It is not acceptable to advertise a service knowing full well you barely have any chance of delivering it. That option should not even be on the table; it should be considered a serious breach of franchise with heavy financial penalties which would make it worth the TOCs' while to solve the issue properly. (That is, it should cost the TOC substantially more than they save by not operating the service or by putting buses on instead).
Having people on different conditions is absolutely toxic. You’re right that different rates of pay is even worse, but different conditions comes a close second. So driver X has to work every Sunday and rarely gets to spend a day with his children, meanwhile driver Y gets every Sunday off. Such grievances soon become justification for “why should I bother when others don’t?”, and before long “stuff it I’m doing the bare minimum”. Even the Night Tube has been the source of a lot of bickering, and is ridiculously inefficient having all the overheads just for two nights of productive work. No business in its right mind would have done it were it not a mayoral flagship.
I agree that services shouldn’t be being offered which in reality are rarely being provided. So go back to the days when Sundays had fewer but longer trains on those routes where there’s strong demand. I don’t expect that to happen, just a continued fudge along the lines of what we already see. This has been going on for many years as it is, it’s hardly a new problem. If there was massive pressure and appetite for change it would have already happened.
And 7-day rosters aren’t a magic solution either. The Central Line for example has been decimated by cancellations these last three days, and they have Sundays well and truly within the working week. The simple reality is many people simply don’t want to work weekends, that isn’t going to change unless it’s made *very* financially rewarding, which brings us back to costs.
GTR has managed to get all drivers to agree new terms with some 'forced' Sunday work. It involved extra money and I'm not sure if they're enforcing it yet or if there would be scope to have enough drivers to one day enhance Sunday services.
It can be done, although a lot of drivers were apparently against it but outnumbered by recent recruits who lapped up the opportunity for more money without considering some compromises they've had to make regarding how they book other leave (I'm not sure exactly what but this is what I've been told).
Anyway, long story short, pay drivers more to work Sunday or accept there will be cancellations when nobody wants to do rest day work.
It can be done, although a lot of drivers were apparently against it but outnumbered by recent recruits who lapped up the opportunity for more money without considering some compromises they've had to make regarding how they book other leave (I'm not sure exactly what but this is what I've been told).
Anyway, long story short, pay drivers more to work Sunday or accept there will be cancellations when nobody wants to do rest day work.
I maintain that in this country there will be some people who don't mind working Sundays as one of their 5 days a week at work. My sibling does it and doesn't get annoyed at people who don't work at the weekend. Equally if there are people who are contracted to a Mon-Friday and wish to swap to include a Sunday and four other days, I'm certain a TOC would appreciate them.
What I would have an issue with are those people who aren't rostered Sundays but are offered such days at a higher rate where others contracted for a Sunday don't get offered a higher rate for working a non-rostered weekday.
What I would have an issue with are those people who aren't rostered Sundays but are offered such days at a higher rate where others contracted for a Sunday don't get offered a higher rate for working a non-rostered weekday.
bramling
Veteran Member
As you say, more money - and this is on GTR who are rather less of a financial basket case than Northern.
I'm sure drivers wouldn't like to not have rest day work available as and when they want it!
HotelNovember
Member
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It’s been an on/off issue for a while now. But reared it’s head even more so after the May 18 TT change.
For example at one depot, because of the increase in services, it’s saw the Sunday turns (pre-May 18) increase from around 10-15 to 20-25 turns on a Sunday, so you’ve gone from the usual staff working a Sunday because of the relatively small number of turns where it can 9 times out of 10 see the job fully covered, to double the number of turns all of a sudden, requiring more volunteers or reliance on Sunday working. It should have been sorted well before the TT change.
And it’s worth pointing out the unions have been playing ball with the company in trying to get a solution.
I think there may be an issue with the amount of STP diagrams too? For example, on the base roster you are marked to 0830-1630 Sunday turn, however due to engineering work, that turn is cancelled and replaced with an 0915-1830 turn, I don’t think I’d be best impressed with that!
For example at one depot, because of the increase in services, it’s saw the Sunday turns (pre-May 18) increase from around 10-15 to 20-25 turns on a Sunday, so you’ve gone from the usual staff working a Sunday because of the relatively small number of turns where it can 9 times out of 10 see the job fully covered, to double the number of turns all of a sudden, requiring more volunteers or reliance on Sunday working. It should have been sorted well before the TT change.
And it’s worth pointing out the unions have been playing ball with the company in trying to get a solution.
I think there may be an issue with the amount of STP diagrams too? For example, on the base roster you are marked to 0830-1630 Sunday turn, however due to engineering work, that turn is cancelled and replaced with an 0915-1830 turn, I don’t think I’d be best impressed with that!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
What (and this is a genuine question) gives the railway that culture where the private sector doesn't have it to anything like that extent? In the end, if you take a job where you work every Sunday and that was what was on offer when you took it, why would you have issues with it? If you don't like the job, don't take it. Or if you see it as a way in, look out for other opportunities to move to with the preferred shift pattern as people leave.
In the private sector you do get disquiet for different pay rates for the same job, but if I took a job as a Sunday cashier for Tesco, or a Saturday night barman, why would I be bothered about those being the case? They were after all the job I applied for and got on that basis.
I don't massively want to work weekends, which is why I haven't applied for a job where weekend working was mandatory. But if I did apply for such a job...
I do agree here. Work out what can be reliably operated, and max out the train lengths. Better to have a train every two hours that you know will run and will be, say, 6.156, than an hourly Pacer that might not show up.
It might be a useful trial for making Platforms 13/14 at Picc operate reliably, too!
Llandudno
Established Member
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- 25 Dec 2014
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Another frustration on Sundays when frequencies are sparse, then there are the cancellations you mention, is the fact that so many of the services are operated by 2 car units when there are dozens of spare units sat in depots.I can see that having people paid different amounts, or receiving different numbers of holiday days, or different benefits, is terrible for morale.
But I can't see why simply employing people to work on days on which the existing workforce demonstrably do not wish to commit to working (otherwise the problem would not exist) would be in any way an issue. Wasn't that the solution for the Night Tube in the end, to employ drivers specifically for it? OK, it wouldn't be viable to employ Sunday-only drivers, but it would presumably be viable to employ drivers (other traincrew are of course available and required
It's not really different conditions in a wider sense, it's just like some businesses, rather than a rota, employ people who always work mornings or always work nights.
If that is felt to be the case, then withdraw the Sunday services entirely. It is not acceptable to advertise them and then not actually operate them reliably due to the inability of TOCs to organise / staff to accept a contractual setup to ensure their proper delivery.
It is not acceptable to advertise a service knowing full well you barely have any chance of delivering it. That option should not even be on the table; it should be considered a serious breach of franchise with heavy financial penalties which would make it worth the TOCs' while to solve the issue properly. (That is, it should cost the TOC substantially more than they save by not operating the service or by putting buses on instead).
Easter weekend, sun comes out (as forecast), sports events all pre-planned etc, = chronic overcrowding!
I don't understand this. Shops aren't regularly closed at short notice at weekends because the staff have seen that it's a nice day and decided to call in sick, nor do cinemas, restaurants or any other of a huge number of 7 day businesses, unionised or not. Are you suggesting that railway staff are fundamentally lazier and more dishonest than the staff of all these other businesses?
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Rail Ranger
Member
- Joined
- 20 Feb 2014
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- 590
There was to some extent a public service ethos under BR which has been much reduced by privatisation.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
This is exactly my question. Or put differently, how about a system whereby rest day working is committed in advance (let's say a month up front, so in April as we are now we would be signing up for the May roster by, say, the second week of April) and such commitment is not withdrawable (on either side) unless the person wishing to withdraw finds a replacement or the TOC asks them not to work but still pays them for it?
Obviously some people may go sick, but like any other day it is necessary to plan to have (and pay for) slightly excess staff to cover that.
underbank
Established Member
I'm really surprised that commitment in advance isn't already in force. You really can't run an essential public service on the whim of the weather or a sports fixture. It's counter-intuitive as more people are likely to want to travel in good weather and when there's a football match or tennis tournament on. The staffing needs to be fixed long in advance.
What if plans changed ? I barely know what I'm doing week to week, let alone a month in advance. My Daughters choir practice day got changed this afternoon and has been moved to Thursdays. That is 2 days notice. If I had signed up to a rest day a month in advance, what happens ? What about from the company perspective ? If a new Driver passes out and is now able to cover the work, they no longer need the rest day. Committing a months worth of overtime in advance will put a financial strain on the TOC and waste even more money. It also doesn't solve any issues with rest day working. In fact, it almost legitimises it and relies on it further.
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