• Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!

ASLEF push for more female and BAME drivers

Status
Not open for further replies.

bramling

Veteran Member
Joined
5 Mar 2012
Messages
17,685
Location
Hertfordshire / Teesdale
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!

Ah, there’s a bit I forgot to add - and I’ll add this with a rider that this applies to railway grades in general rather than necessarily driving grades. For some people all the previously mentioned wants go out the window when the undesirable shift is on overtime, suddenly the “childcare problem” miraculously vanishes, or the “much deserved rare family day out” is called off. To be fair this doesn’t apply to *everyone*, but it certainly applies to some.

I’m not sure it would be practicable to run coverage on the basis of paying different rates for different shifts though. That would cause problems too, qv some of the issues with weekend working where people might be happy to sign up for RDW in February, but less keen in August. The trains still need to run...
 
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R

RailUK Forums

deltic

Established Member
Joined
8 Feb 2010
Messages
3,201
An interesting story from the Guardian website.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/17/female-bame-train-drivers-aslef


At first I thought "I don't see what's stopping them from applying already". Then I thought "What actually is stopping them from applying?"

The first thing that came to mind was the shift patterns. Constantly changing shift patterns must make it difficult for parents (especially mothers) from organising childcare, school transport etc. Is there anything that could be done in that area? My general perception was that the unions would be against any such changes to rosters. (This may be an overly dim view of unions, but that's for another thread.) However, this call has come from a union - ASLEF. Maybe they would be a bit more amenable to this than I assumed?

Would this change be helpful? What other changes/initiatives might be useful?

To be clear, I'm not just talking about advertising jobs to a particular demographic, or even any sort of positive discrimination. I'm more interested in practical ideas which would remove barriers to entry for those under-represented demographics.

I think the attitude shown by a number of people in this thread answers your question about what is stopping them from applying. I'm impressed by Bellbell's patience in replying to some of the nonsense posted.
 

HLE

Established Member
Joined
27 Dec 2013
Messages
1,405
The way I see it is:

I see enough people on here and out there try, try and try again to get a drivers job. They may get in but the odds are firmly stacked against them all, whether they're female, black, gay, straight or slightly daft.

If TOC/FOC's start favouring female applicants because their women, that's plain wrong. Positive discrimination I think it's called - remove the positive bit and that's exactly what it really is.

Just a PR points scoring excersise from ASLEF as I see it.

If women want to be a train driver then they will apply like the rest.

We don't need more women because they're women. I doubt theres many out there that would see their sex as being a barrier to getting in.
 

bobbyrail

Member
Joined
25 Dec 2018
Messages
101
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.

So what proof do you have that recruitment within the rail industry has been biased towards the middle aged white male with no child care responsibilities, and demanding hours to suit themselves and how long has this been going on, what legal action has been taken by ASLEF or others to amend this injustice? Oh and jobs on the rail network are not just based on ability to learn, just like in many other industries hearing, vision, attitude, references, qualifications, experience (not driving trains but overall eg customer service), and may i just say (i know it may hurt) but flexibility to the employer.
 

TheBigD

Established Member
Joined
19 Nov 2008
Messages
1,991
So what proof do you have that recruitment within the rail industry has been biased towards the middle aged white male with no child care responsibilities, and demanding hours to suit themselves and how long has this been going on, what legal action has been taken by ASLEF or others to amend this injustice? Oh and jobs on the rail network are not just based on ability to learn, just like in many other industries hearing, vision, attitude, references, qualifications, experience (not driving trains but overall eg customer service), and may i just say (i know it may hurt) but flexibility to the employer.


Meanwhile Cheshire police were found guilty of discriminating against a straight white male.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...rejected-white-heterosexual-male-joins-force/
 

aye2beeviasea

Member
Joined
28 Feb 2017
Messages
119
So what proof do you have that recruitment within the rail industry has been biased towards the middle aged white male with no child care responsibilities, and demanding hours to suit themselves and how long has this been going on, what legal action has been taken by ASLEF or others to amend this injustice? Oh and jobs on the rail network are not just based on ability to learn, just like in many other industries hearing, vision, attitude, references, qualifications, experience (not driving trains but overall eg customer service), and may i just say (i know it may hurt) but flexibility to the employer.
You're seriously suggesting that white men have better hearing than everyone else?
 

deltic

Established Member
Joined
8 Feb 2010
Messages
3,201
So what proof do you have that recruitment within the rail industry has been biased towards the middle aged white male with no child care responsibilities, and demanding hours to suit themselves and how long has this been going on, what legal action has been taken by ASLEF or others to amend this injustice? Oh and jobs on the rail network are not just based on ability to learn, just like in many other industries hearing, vision, attitude, references, qualifications, experience (not driving trains but overall eg customer service), and may i just say (i know it may hurt) but flexibility to the employer.

Look up the history of Asquith Xavier who worked at Euston for BR or the 1991 case when 8 Asian guards won a case of discrimination against BR and the RMT union just avoided formal investigation by the Commission for Racial Equality for failing to protect them from discrimination. These might be old but they show an industry that is not at the forefront of equal opportunities or promoting diversity.
 

bramling

Veteran Member
Joined
5 Mar 2012
Messages
17,685
Location
Hertfordshire / Teesdale
So what proof do you have that recruitment within the rail industry has been biased towards the middle aged white male with no child care responsibilities, and demanding hours to suit themselves and how long has this been going on, what legal action has been taken by ASLEF or others to amend this injustice? Oh and jobs on the rail network are not just based on ability to learn, just like in many other industries hearing, vision, attitude, references, qualifications, experience (not driving trains but overall eg customer service), and may i just say (i know it may hurt) but flexibility to the employer.

Some good points there. The railway could quite happily run a completely level playing field at recruitment - simply take those candidates who score highest through the selection process, and of course who don’t become one of the very many who get knocked out at the various intermediate stages.

There might well be scope to quash any misconceptions that particular groups may have, it equally this may well put some people off too. Whilst some London depots might achieve a diverse mix (many already are - especially LU), it’s simply not going to be viable at some more remote places. I wonder how many BAME drivers there are at Machynlleth or Pwllheli to think of somewhere at random which immediately springs to mind.

As I said elsewhere, the railway is already a very level playing field. *Anyone* can do it as long as they’re prepared to commit to working the roster and can get through the selection process, training and then keep their nose clean.
 

ComUtoR

Established Member
Joined
13 Dec 2013
Messages
9,399
Location
UK
it’s simply not going to be viable at some more remote places. I wonder how many BAME drivers there are at Machynlleth or Pwllheli to think of somewhere at random which immediately springs to mind.

Back to those barriers.. How many would feel welcome there ?

People live and work where they feel comfortable and welcomed. They gather where people are like minded and yes, look the same. Do you take positive action to promote and specifically hire in a more diverse workforce or do you have one that reflects the local community ? In London, differences are celebrated (more of less) but in some communities people can be more narrow minded and more traditional in their views.

How do you also break the stereotypes that exist in some communities that are considered to be more narrow minded in their treatment of others, and more specifically their women ? You can open up your workforce as much as you want but you still have to deal with society and individual values.

There was always a big rift between my Mum and Dad because she went out and worked. I do wonder how many 'traditional values' are keeping women away from the workplace.
 

dk1

Veteran Member
Joined
2 Oct 2009
Messages
15,823
Location
East Anglia
Noticed Rail magazine shared this earlier. As a member of ASLEF since 98 & BR SINCE 84, I had to Google what the hell BAME stood for. Never heard of it.
 

talltim

Established Member
Joined
17 Jan 2010
Messages
2,454
People talking about positive discrimination in the selection process are missing the point. The aim isn’t to employ women over men, or to only employ ethnic minorities, the aim is to get more of them to feel like they can apply for the jobs, that they stand an equal opportunity of getting them (depending on ability) and that they they won’t feel unwelcome if they do get them.
 

Pete_uk

Established Member
Joined
28 Jan 2017
Messages
1,250
Location
Stroud, Glos
The way I see it is:

I see enough people on here and out there try, try and try again to get a drivers job. They may get in but the odds are firmly stacked against them all, whether they're female, black, gay, straight or slightly daft.

If TOC/FOC's start favouring female applicants because their women, that's plain wrong. Positive discrimination I think it's called - remove the positive bit and that's exactly what it really is.

Just a PR points scoring excersise from ASLEF as I see it.

If women want to be a train driver then they will apply like the rest.

We don't need more women because they're women. I doubt theres many out there that would see their sex as being a barrier to getting in.

I agree with the above post. If people REALLY think that they can't do something because of their gender/sexuality/race/whatever then what can you do?
 

hooverboy

On Moderation
Joined
12 Oct 2017
Messages
1,372
Haha I was doing my GCSEs back then, I bet your hourly rate has gone up a tad since.

And quite rightly so!
make hay while the sun shines 'n all.
2 years later in 2001,after Y2K the whole market collapsed, and the same contractors were lucky to get £20 per hour..if they could find work.

it's recovered a bit since then obviously(it's notoriously cyclical as industries go), but not in the same mania it used to be, at least not in europe,because most of the stuff left here is r+d based.
going rate for design/development is now about £50-60 per hour contract(or £70kpa permanent), and production staff around £35ph (35-40kpa permanent)depending on experience/skill level.
 

AlterEgo

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2008
Messages
20,036
Location
No longer here
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.

This. You can't deliberately try to recruit women by saying "Hey, you can be a train driver, and don't worry - you'll never have to work nights! The blokes will do all that! You'll get shifts where you can pick your kids up from school every day, because that's what women do"

The railway should try to recruit as evenly as possible from all sections of the community for no other reason than that's the widest possible talent pool. I'm all for changing the culture of the railway, from making mess rooms a bit less masculine to making sure people don't tell racist or sexist jokes.

But there are inalienable facts about being a train driver - like working shifts, which often change, or unexpected and unavoidable overtime (how about dealing with a failed train for two hours, missing picking your kids up and having no way of contacting them?).
 

AlterEgo

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2008
Messages
20,036
Location
No longer here
That’s an interesting point.

My gut reaction would be to simply ask whether the test was accurate in terms of selecting the best candidates for the job, and stop there.

For certain roles with a large physical content, it’s inevitable that men might perform better. Note I wouldn’t put most railway roles in that camp and certainly not driving, these days, where coupling and uncoupling is done at the press of a button and there is no longer a heavy physical element to the role. For that reason I would imagine (but cannot evidence!) that the driver assessments which test hand eye coordination, concentration etc. don’t favour one sex over another.

At a macro scale, lots of studies show men outperform women at both hand-eye coordination and single task focus activities. Men also outperform women at problem-solving tasks like fault finding.

Women on the other hand are better at solving issues in teams, dealing with and accounting for human factors, and communicating with the public.

It's not reasonable to suppose that for any one job, a 50/50 split is desirable. Some jobs are far more suited to people of one gender over another - on a macro scale, not an individual one.
 

Surreytraveller

On Moderation
Joined
21 Oct 2009
Messages
2,810
As I said elsewhere, the railway is already a very level playing field. *Anyone* can do it as long as they’re prepared to commit to working the roster and can get through the selection process, training and then keep their nose clean.
I concur with this. As long as you can turn up, the railway will take anyone.
 

irish_rail

Established Member
Joined
30 Oct 2013
Messages
3,813
Location
Plymouth
Aslef really are losing the plot at the minute. They should be more worried about alienating their current members rather than moaning about a none existent problem.
 

al78

Established Member
Joined
7 Jan 2013
Messages
2,400
The way I see it is:

I see enough people on here and out there try, try and try again to get a drivers job. They may get in but the odds are firmly stacked against them all, whether they're female, black, gay, straight or slightly daft.

If TOC/FOC's start favouring female applicants because their women, that's plain wrong. Positive discrimination I think it's called - remove the positive bit and that's exactly what it really is.

Just a PR points scoring excersise from ASLEF as I see it.

If women want to be a train driver then they will apply like the rest.

We don't need more women because they're women. I doubt theres many out there that would see their sex as being a barrier to getting in.

True to a point, but the issue is whether there is genuine irrational bias in the recruitment process. The question that should be asked (in terms of analysing gender bias for example), is what is the percentage of women applying for jobs, and what is the percentage of women in those jobs? If the first is much larger than the second, either there is an irrational gender bias, or for some reason, women are significantly less capable on average to do the job, and if you believe the latter, show me the evidence (there is no statistical difference in mean IQ between men and women). Another question to ask is if there are way more men than women applying for the jobs, why is that? Is it because the jobs are far more appealing to men, or is it an irrational cultural thing where women don't feel they can apply even if they'd like to have a go? The latter should be addressed as well if it exists.

The fact is that humans are not always logical, and are heavily influenced by irrational cognitive biases.
 

DanDaDriver

Member
Joined
5 May 2018
Messages
338
Aslef really are losing the plot at the minute. They should be more worried about alienating their current members rather than moaning about a none existent problem.

To be fair, this is the sort of thing I would expect ASLEF rightly to be involved in.

That said, I’ve given up reading the ASLEF journal as it’s basically a Corbyn love-fest rather than anything relevant to the job.
 

ivanhoe

Member
Joined
15 Jul 2009
Messages
929
I applaud ASLEF to encourage the recruitment of drivers from said groups. It’s something that’s been happening in most employment sectors for the last 20 years.
 

irish_rail

Established Member
Joined
30 Oct 2013
Messages
3,813
Location
Plymouth
I applaud ASLEF to encourage the recruitment of drivers from said groups. It’s something that’s been happening in most employment sectors for the last 20 years.
Yes of course but with Tocs already bending over backwards to increase numbers of female + BAME employees I can't really see what aslef are trying to achieve other than a publicity stunt
 

furnessvale

Established Member
Joined
14 Jul 2015
Messages
4,558
But there are inalienable facts about being a train driver - like working shifts, which often change, or unexpected and unavoidable overtime (how about dealing with a failed train for two hours, missing picking your kids up and having no way of contacting them?).
Those inalienable facts apply to many jobs.

Ask any young male single police officer, at least within BTP, who is disproportionately falling for the crap shifts!

I'm all for equality, but when a married female police officer turns up at a pre planned meeting with her superintendent COMPLETE WITH HER LAWYER to demand which shifts she is prepared to work, equality has gone too far.

Existing young single male drivers, get ready for the s****y end of the stick!
 

richa2002

Established Member
Joined
8 Jun 2005
Messages
2,270
I applaud ASLEF to encourage the recruitment of drivers from said groups. It’s something that’s been happening in most employment sectors for the last 20 years.
Why are you so sexist/racist? Judge on ability, nothing else.
 

AlterEgo

Veteran Member
Joined
30 Dec 2008
Messages
20,036
Location
No longer here
Why are you so sexist/racist? Judge on ability, nothing else.

An extremely bad faith post. @ivanhoe said nothing sexist or racist.

I think most of us would agree that train driving is an important job to get the right candidates for. It's good that ASLEF are encouraging a wider pool of recruitment, and it's sensible for companies to try harder to advertise positions beyond their traditional recruitment base.

Where I halt that train of thought is radically altering the grade's duties to suit certain applicants, or giving special privileges like highly prized shifts to certain applicants.
 

mpthomson

Member
Joined
18 Feb 2016
Messages
948
In that case I withdraw my criticism of it! Must admit I find it astonishing that use of that rather insulting derogatory terminology is successfully attracting applicants, but perhaps the BA has tapped into some youth counter-culture that I'm hitherto unaware of.

There's a sense of humour to it as well, which helps. And to be fair, it's not aimed at people above the age of 25 so anyone much older than that, as I now am, doesn't get it at first. Fair to say that many more mature Army people were fairly sceptical when it first appeared, but it's been very successful.

The other good military one is the RAF ad showing all the jobs females can do in the service, thats also very successful.
 

MichaelAMW

Member
Joined
18 Jun 2010
Messages
1,011
It doesn't strike me that the "BAME" issue is all that serious, given the relative percentages quoted elsewhere for those who are drivers and those in the population in general, particularly given the diversity amongst drivers mentioned in the London area, where I believe less than half the population is white British. It's not rational to expect an exactly proportional mixture in a job with such precise criteria, which might be present in different proportions in different groups of society, even if that's true because of undesirable reasons, e.g. varying educational attainment or previous success in the jobs market in terms of suitable experience.

Women, however, are clearly underepresented, even given a likely variation between the suitability of women and men, e.g. see post 105, and I realise that's making the possibly incorrect assumption that women are intrinsically less suitable. So, my question, and sorry if I've missed the answer somewhere in the thread: of the (apparently) much smaller number of women who apply, how does their success in the recruitment process compare with that of men applicants?
 

O L Leigh

Established Member
Joined
20 Jan 2006
Messages
5,612
Location
In the cab with the paper
People talking about positive discrimination in the selection process are missing the point. The aim isn’t to employ women over men, or to only employ ethnic minorities, the aim is to get more of them to feel like they can apply for the jobs, that they stand an equal opportunity of getting them (depending on ability) and that they they won’t feel unwelcome if they do get them.

This.

You can't deliberately try to recruit women by saying "Hey, you can be a train driver, and don't worry - you'll never have to work nights! The blokes will do all that! You'll get shifts where you can pick your kids up from school every day, because that's what women do"

I'm assuming that the use of quotation marks denotes levity, as the last phrase is actually quite sexist and symptomatic of the sort of issues that ASLEF are trying to overcome.

It annoys the hell out of me when I sit in a messroom and hear male colleagues slagging off female colleagues for "taking the piss" and "playing the pregnancy card" in order to get the cushy shifts. I don't see any reason why this should happen. It's an unavoidable consequence of biology that women bear children not men, and colleagues of any gender should not be vilified for wanting to start a family. Anyone can apply for accommodated shifts, although clearly not all applications can be granted due to availability, whether male or female. Indeed, I have known male colleagues successfully apply for accommodation and yet no-one seems to think it worthy of comment let alone criticism. It's no wonder that one of my female colleagues gets "chippy" whenever anyone thinks she's just swinging the lead.

There is no doubt that the industry could be more "family friendly" which would make it more attractive to female applicants, but shift work need not necessarily be a problem as many families seem to make it work for them across many industries. It may take a readjustment of roles and responsibilities in the home, but that's not impossible. With a train driver's wage, there's no reason why the lady of the house couldn't be the main earner and her chap take on more responsibilities at home.

There are many hurdles to overcome, including the prevailing culture (which can be horribly chauvinistic), but I see no reason why under-represented groups should not be targeted. Clearly selection and recruitment should be gender-blind.
 

Mojo

Forum Staff
Staff Member
Administrator
Joined
7 Aug 2005
Messages
20,382
Location
0035
Shift work doesn’t have to be unfriendly to those with childcare commitments though, I know of plenty of people who only work certain shifts (and I’m not talking about the popular ones or the short ones) or who always try to have midweek rest days in order to do stuff like the school run. In many ways having one or both people in the couple doing shift work is easier than both of them doing a 9-5 office job.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Top