ASLEF push for more female and BAME drivers

hooverboy · 17 Jun 2019

Bromley boy said:
In fairness, it is still generally mothers who take on those responsibilities - you’re a parent so I’m sure you can agree with that. That is just a factual reality.

The point is that the cushy shifts need to be divvied up with the anti social shifts and awarded equally. It would be quite wrong for one group to be given better shifts than another due to lifestyle choices. Mutual swaps etc. are the only fair way of doing it.

Would it be right for Muslim train drivers to be given cushy shifts during Ramadan, for example?

technically, if they want friday as a rest day,then what is the problem?
surely there are plenty of christians and jews in the profession that will happily do a swap for saturday/sunday rest days?

ok, you're hassidic, let's plonk you on earlies and you can be back for shabbat.

for family commitments it is much,much easier having a stable shift pattern than an alternating one.
..not to mention health+safety(it is safety critical after all!)
alternating shifts are the equivalent of subjecting your body to jet lag every week....it is NOT good for reflexes,when in such a role they need to be as sharp as possible.

viv-a vis muslims/ramadan.....well again health+safety comes to the fore.If there is sufficient evidence to prove that the fasting has a detrimental impact on accidents/incidents, then provision must be made for the times of day that is likely to occur(ie afternoon shift might be a bit of a problem during summer if they can't eat until sundown)

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Tom B · 17 Jun 2019

Perhaps there are shift patterns which accommodate the wishes of those with children, but which still have a fair share of duties? A fixed rota of (say) 2 earlies, 2 lates, 3 days off every week would allow them to make childcare arrangements which are the same week to week. I know a couple who, when their son was young, both worked a 4-on 4-off rota, thus one of them was always at home. There are many other industries with anti social hours, emergency services etc, although I suppose many will have a standard shift system (eg 6/2, 2/10, 10/6).

Fixed shifts (as in permanent earlies etc) are fine if there's a balance. I prefer (non-railway) late or night shifts, most of my colleagues prefer earlies. I once went 3 years without doing a full week of earlies and would have people asking to swap all the time.

As to why it's important, we surely want the best people as drivers, and there could be female/bame people who could do a better job but who, for whatever reason, do not apply.

ComUtoR · 17 Jun 2019

Bromley boy said:
In terms of periods of illness etc., I would agree. But not so much when it comes to lifestyle choices.

Life gets in the way. I have been refused time off for a funeral, time off for weddings, missed various celebrations, moving house, family illness (my Nan has dementia), my house has flooded, car accident, etc etc. No flexibility is offered. The railway has a very fixed mentality when it comes to a work/life balance. I think this needs to be addressed; mostly through changes to working conditions.

But how do we define “need”? If someone has kids, who is to say their need is any greater than someone who wants to observe Ramadan. Or someone who simply wants to go home and play on their PlayStation?!

I don't think one person should be greater (or lesser) than the other. Only just that there should be clear policies in place to allow flexibility in the workplace. If someone wanted to take time for Ramadan then I'm happy to support my colleagues. I will also happily support someone who wants to lounge about at home because they prefer early/late shift for whatever reason (including playing playstation). Not forgetting that a fixed roster works both ways. I work my own shifts and then can get ~~shafted~~ when spare/as required. We are constantly covering someone elses work

I would rather cover someones turn because of a significant reason, rather than those who just blow it in last minute or those who are gaming the system. If there was flexibility in the workplace then this wouldn't be an issue.

The railway still has an 'old mans' link or 'senior Driver link' these offer what was considered preferential/cushy turns. Why can't that antiquated approach be applied to a more flexible roster ? Why can't there be part-time drivers ? There is the usual glacial pace when it comes to job sharing and reduced hours but again, it is in place for the elder statesmen amongst us. This could easily be applied to those who do want restricted or reduced hours. Why not offer that to all ?

We really do have to push to a more modern workplace.

Chris999999 · 17 Jun 2019

The dogbox said:
Do you read the daily mail by any chance?

No I don't. Do you recommend it?

hooverboy · 17 Jun 2019

Tom B said:
Perhaps there are shift patterns which accommodate the wishes of those with children, but which still have a fair share of duties? A fixed rota of (say) 2 earlies, 2 lates, 3 days off every week would allow them to make childcare arrangements which are the same week to week. I know a couple who, when their son was young, both worked a 4-on 4-off rota, thus one of them was always at home. There are many other industries with anti social hours, emergency services etc, although I suppose many will have a standard shift system (eg 6/2, 2/10, 10/6).

Fixed shifts (as in permanent earlies etc) are fine if there's a balance. I prefer (non-railway) late or night shifts, most of my colleagues prefer earlies. I once went 3 years without doing a full week of earlies and would have people asking to swap all the time.

As to why it's important, we surely want the best people as drivers, and there could be female/bame people who could do a better job but who, for whatever reason, do not apply.

if you have a reasonable size pool of people,it is quite possible to organise a roster which will cover permanent earlies/lates and alternating at the same time.
Just needs a bit of consultation and feelers put out to see who is responsive...and a financial incentive to cover the problem shifts.
I've done it on a team of 20 people before, and a team of 100 people before.It's quite achievable.

Tom B · 17 Jun 2019

hooverboy said:
if you have a reasonable size pool of people,it is quite possible to organise a roster which will cover permanent earlies/lates and alternating at the same time.
Just needs a bit of consultation and feelers put out to see who is responsive...and a financial incentive to cover the problem shifts.
I've done it on a team of 20 people before, and a team of 100 people before.It's quite achievable.

Would it be less controversial if those on the anti social rota got an extra £5k I wonder? So folk can do the job on fixed duties, but those doing the nasty shifts get rewarded for doing so.

TheBigD · 17 Jun 2019

Tom B said:
Would it be less controversial if those on the anti social rota got an extra £5k I wonder? So folk can do the job on fixed duties, but those doing the nasty shifts get rewarded for doing so.

And the usual baiters will whinge about the *pay gap.

*gender/race/dissabilty/ginger/left handed etc etc

Bromley boy · 17 Jun 2019

hooverboy said:
technically, if they want friday as a rest day,then what is the problem?
surely there are plenty of christians and jews in the profession that will happily do a swap for saturday/sunday rest days?

ok, you're hassidic, let's plonk you on earlies and you can be back for shabbat.

for family commitments it is much,much easier having a stable shift pattern than an alternating one.
..not to mention health+safety(it is safety critical after all!)
alternating shifts are the equivalent of subjecting your body to jet lag every week....it is NOT good for reflexes,when in such a role they need to be as sharp as possible.

viv-a vis muslims/ramadan.....well again health+safety comes to the fore.If there is sufficient evidence to prove that the fasting has a detrimental impact on accidents/incidents, then provision must be made for the times of day that is likely to occur(ie afternoon shift might be a bit of a problem during summer if they can't eat until sundown)

What a silly comment.

I’d also like every Friday as a rest day, thanks very much. The point (that you’ve evidently missed!) is that we all have different lifestyles, different preferences in terms of days off etc. But if you choose go into a shift based role you know from the outset that those preferences won’t always be honoured.

If people are fasting such that they can’t perform their job, that is a lifestyle choice they are making. It’s no different to the lifestyle choice I have made in being unable to go boozing the night before a shift.

Who is to say that one lifestyle choice is more deserving than another?

HotelNovember · 17 Jun 2019

Have to laugh at some of the calls for more flexibility, just as a random example one of the barriers for applying for the railway is the weekend working, which puts people off. Dare I say it might be Sundays!

Yet, the same people throw a wobbler when there’s issues covering the job on a Sunday because there aren’t enough volunteers etc

TheBigD · 17 Jun 2019

The dogbox said:
Do you read the daily mail by any chance?

According to Wikipedia... "It is now the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world,[4] with over 11.34m visitors daily in August 2014.[5]

So I guess lots of people read it...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MailOnline

Bromley boy · 17 Jun 2019

hooverboy said:
if you have a reasonable size pool of people,it is quite possible to organise a roster which will cover permanent earlies/lates and alternating at the same time.
Just needs a bit of consultation and feelers put out to see who is responsive...and a financial incentive to cover the problem shifts.
I've done it on a team of 20 people before, and a team of 100 people before.It's quite achievable.

Disagree.

Most people on the railway favour early shifts. I suspect you don’t work on the railway. Am I right?

The dogbox · 17 Jun 2019

Chris999999 said:
No I don't. Do you recommend it?

No because it contains many ridiculous statements like the one you came out with.

hooverboy · 17 Jun 2019

ComUtoR said:
Life gets in the way. I have been refused time off for a funeral, time off for weddings, missed various celebrations, moving house, family illness (my Nan has dementia), my house has flooded, car accident, etc etc. No flexibility is offered. The railway has a very fixed mentality when it comes to a work/life balance. I think this needs to be addressed; mostly through changes to working conditions.

I think therein lies the problem.
and that is ultimately bad management/working practice.

1)There SHOULD be sufficient provision in staffing to cover for "occasional incidents", be it sickness,holiday, child ill,accidents etc
2)existing staff should not be under duress to do huge amounts of overtime on a regular basis...it's nice but should not be a given.
3)the work-life balance is important...people have families too,being stuck in a cab 24/7 on your own is not good mentally
4)how well publicised is the "shift swap"...has anybody put out a survey to get the response of the team,or has it just been dictated from on high that "it shall be so"?
5)...as stated some posts above..are there safety implications/improvements that could be made?

If I was management I would be taking a good look at this, putting feelers out and maybe setting up a pilot programme on a couple of lines,to see if I got any increase in safety/reliability/customer praises!
..and decreases in sickies and customer complaints.

if more female and BAME drivers are now applying/succeeding because it's easier to manage family life as well, then that's a win-win all round!

TheBigD · 17 Jun 2019

Bromley boy said:
Disagree.

Most people on the railway favour early shifts. I suspect you don’t work on the railway. Am I right?

I'm one of those strange people who prefer nights but in my experience you're correct.
I detest early turns with a passion.

hooverboy · 17 Jun 2019

Bromley boy said:
Disagree.

Most people on the railway favour early shifts. I suspect you don’t work on the railway. Am I right?

nope, not on the railway- telecom networks.

funnily a lot of people also keen on earlies(I'm not one of them!)..but I work all over the globe so my body clock takes a bit of a pounding.

Chris999999 · 17 Jun 2019

The dogbox said:
No because it contains many ridiculous statements like the one you came out with.

So if you do not recommend it, why advertise it? That is ridiculous.

underbank · 17 Jun 2019

Tom B said:
Would it be less controversial if those on the anti social rota got an extra £5k I wonder? So folk can do the job on fixed duties, but those doing the nasty shifts get rewarded for doing so.

With the accompanying reduction in pay for those now only doing "nice" shifts rather than the full range upon which salary was original set.

Bromley boy · 17 Jun 2019

TheBigD said:
I'm one of those strange people who prefer nights but in my experience you're correct.
I detest early turns with a passion.

I’m the same as you in terms of hating earlies, my preference is for “office hours”, and it’s usually quite easy to swap accordingly.

We are are a rare breed!

Bromley boy · 17 Jun 2019

hooverboy said:
nope, not on the railway- telecom networks.

funnily a lot of people also keen on earlies(I'm not one of them!)..but I work all over the globe so my body clock takes a bit of a pounding.

Fair enough.

Apologies - my previous reply was a little harsh!

ComUtoR · 17 Jun 2019

HotelNovember said:
Have to laugh at some of the calls for more flexibility, just as a random example one of the barriers for applying for the railway is the weekend working, which puts people off. Dare I say it might be Sundays!

The objection to working Sunday isn't because its a Sunday. It's because its overtime and some people view it as 'forced' overtime.

Flexibility in the workplace is what will drive people to work Sundays. Look at the Night Tube. People were brought in specifically to work shifts that others wouldn't. The TOCs could do this for Sunday/Weekend work too. As a Parent, I find that my biggest restriction is needing time off during the week. If there was some way move my Sunday rest day to a weekday I could work more Sundays and no need for rest day working or volunteers. However, there isn't that flexibility. I can guarantee there would be many who would happily swap a weekday for a Sunday. It could also be resolved when accommodating Drivers. You can make Sundays part of that accommodation.

bramling · 17 Jun 2019

Bromley boy said:
By all means use targeted recruitment campaigns to encourage female applicants, and ensure those candidates are treated equally through the recruitment process. Note that many TOCs now use “blind” CV screening. That is a good thing.

But the *overwhelming* concern, to my mind, should be to ensure that the best candidate gets the job in every case.

Otherwise we start down a dangerous road of social engineering, “positive discrimination” and the risk of accusations of tokenism.

Agreed, and of course not to mention the prospect of a load of unsuitable candidates getting through, wasting time and money at best, making life difficult and uncomfortable for those who have to train them, and potentially being a liability if they do get through.

ComUtoR · 17 Jun 2019

hooverboy said:
If I was management I would be taking a good look at this, putting feelers out and maybe setting up a pilot programme on a couple of lines,to see if I got any increase in safety/reliability/customer praises!
..and decreases in sickies and customer complaints.

A lot of people 'take a sickie' because they couldn't get time of for [insert reason] It is far easier to blow it in on the day and take the hit on a sick day. This is not limited to the railway. A happy workforce is a productive one.

if more female and BAME drivers are now applying/succeeding because it's easier to manage family life as well, then that's a win-win all round!

I'd like to agree but I think money is driving recruitment more than anything. To keep it on topic... This is one place where railway recruitment wins. Your pay is dependent on what role you are in and wages are high. As a female/bame you can break both glass ceilings in one hit. Especially as a Driver. How many women can say they are able to work a 4 day week for £50k pa ?

bramling · 17 Jun 2019

Bromley boy said:
Disagree.

Most people on the railway favour early shifts. I suspect you don’t work on the railway. Am I right?

I’d say as many as 75% favour earlies or middles, with dead earlies in particular being popular. However this is just one element, there’s also rest day and annual leave patterns. “Please can I have Sundays and Saturdays as my rest days as I have family” is a favourite, and of course there’s Christmas which is possibly the most cut-throat of all. The more complex it all becomes the more difficult it becomes to cover uncovered duties, which ultimately leads to cancelled trains - lest we be reminded there’s plenty of threads on this very forum about weekend cancellations or why a Boxing Day service should be provided...

The silver lining to all this is that for those people who like late turns, weekday rest days, annual leave not coinciding with school holidays, and don’t give a stuff about Christmas, it generally all works rather well!

hooverboy · 17 Jun 2019

ComUtoR said:
A lot of people 'take a sickie' because they couldn't get time of for [insert reason] It is far easier to blow it in on the day and take the hit on a sick day. This is not limited to the railway. A happy workforce is a productive one.

I'd like to agree but I think money is driving recruitment more than anything. To keep it on topic... This is one place where railway recruitment wins. Your pay is dependent on what role you are in and wages are high. As a female/bame you can break both glass ceilings in one hit. Especially as a Driver. How many women can say they are able to work a 4 day week for £50k pa ?

how may people in general can say they are working a 4 day week for £50kpa+?
average wage in the country is closer to £30k.it's probably less for women due to the nature of most employment.

PS:revenue should be driving it!
What revenue are you getting when a service is cancelled,or people are transporting themselves by other means because a service is 50/50 whether it will turn up or not?

hooverboy · 17 Jun 2019

bramling said:
I’d say as many as 75% favour earlies or middles, with dead earlies in particular being popular. However this is just one element, there’s also rest day and annual leave patterns. “Please can I have Sundays and Saturdays as my rest days as I have family” is a favourite, and of course there’s Christmas which is possibly the most cut-throat of all. The more complex it all becomes the more difficult it becomes to cover uncovered duties, which ultimately leads to cancelled trains - lest we be reminded there’s plenty of threads on this very forum about weekend cancellations or why a Boxing Day service should be provided...

The silver lining to all this is that for those people who like late turns, weekday rest days, annual leave not coinciding with school holidays, and don’t give a stuff about Christmas, it generally all works rather well!

you would have thought that bank holiday working would be quite popular with the right incentive,(ie time*2+day in lieu)
likewise for emergency/weekend shift(lets say time *1.5)..you don't want saturday Or sunday...well OK, but no bonus!

as for out of school hours- well, if you don't have kids,the holidays are 3* the price they are in term time!

bobbyrail · 17 Jun 2019

So ballcocks to ability so long as you are Female, have an ethnic origin, have a few kids and want to work what hours suit you, then flip to the TOC and the travelling public because the main thing is we gave someone a job who cant fulfil the role but hey we ticked a box.... Yes.

Bromley boy · 17 Jun 2019

bramling said:
I’d say as many as 75% favour earlies or middles, with dead earlies in particular being popular. However this is just one element, there’s also rest day and annual leave patterns. “Please can I have Sundays and Saturdays as my rest days as I have family” is a favourite, and of course there’s Christmas which is possibly the most cut-throat of all. The more complex it all becomes the more difficult it becomes to cover uncovered duties, which ultimately leads to cancelled trains - lest we be reminded there’s plenty of threads on this very forum about weekend cancellations or why a Boxing Day service should be provided...

The silver lining to all this is that for those people who like late turns, weekday rest days, annual leave not coinciding with school holidays, and don’t give a stuff about Christmas, it generally all works rather well!

Agreed.

You might as well write my posts for me.

hooverboy said:
how may people in general can say they are working a 4 day week for £50kpa+?
average wage in the country is closer to £30k.it's probably less for women due to the nature of most employment.

PS:revenue should be driving it!
What revenue are you getting when a service is cancelled,or people are transporting themselves by other means because a service is 50/50 whether it will turn up or not?

The going rate for drivers is rather more than £50k these days.

Every single penny of which is earned. I say that as someone who has earned that much, and considerably more, in professional roles before joining the railway.

Mortgage sorted. Should I buy that Porsche Cayman?! It’s between that and the BMW M4 I also have my eye on.

hooverboy · 17 Jun 2019

Bromley boy said:
Agreed.

You might as well write my posts for me.

The going rate for drivers is rather more than £50k these days.

Every single penny of which is earned. I say that as someone who has earned that much, and considerably more, in professional roles before joining the railway.

Mortgage sorted. Should I buy that Porsche Cayman?! It’s between that and the BMW M4 I also have my eye on.

got to be in the right place at the right time!!!

I remember that being the case back in 1998/1999 when 3G was rolling out.
contractors were £35-40 per hour back then.
2 years later it all went a bit pear-shaped.

Bromley boy · 17 Jun 2019

hooverboy said:
got to be in the right place at the right time!!!

I remember that being the case back in 1998/1999 when 3G was rolling out.
contractors were £35-40 per hour back then.
2 years later it all went a bit pear-shaped.

Haha I was doing my GCSEs back then, I bet your hourly rate has gone up a tad since.

And quite rightly so!

aye2beeviasea · 17 Jun 2019

bobbyrail said:
So ballcocks to ability so long as you are Female, have an ethnic origin, have a few kids and want to work what hours suit you, then flip to the TOC and the travelling public because the main thing is we gave someone a job who cant fulfil the role but hey we ticked a box.... Yes.

What a silly thing to say. Any industry that has previously biased recruitment in favour of one particular demographic is going to have a lower than expected quality of employees. Since the probability that if you listed the general public in order of aptitude for the job (i.e. ability to learn) and discovered that the top 20000 or whatever all happen to be from a specific demographic that only accounts for about 40% of the population is infinitesimally small.

ASLEF push for more female and BAME drivers

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