PBarnesHST
Member
- Joined
- 2 Apr 2019
- Messages
- 22
Last edited:
-
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!
"TfL staff perk that lets housemate travel free 'cost record £42m in lost revenue last year'"
- Thread starter PBarnesHST
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
If it's offered at all it should be offered for a nominee as noted (as "husband/wife only" would be a bit discriminatory). But realistically it should probably only be for the member of staff.
My thoughts are
1) Gosh, I wonder why a newspaper edited by a former Tory minister is attacking hard-won benefits enjoyed by unionised workers?
2) It's invalid to assert that the 'lost revenue' is equal to the value of the journeys taken - without the benefit some of the journeys may well not have been made at all.
I've no inherent objection to that, but you can bet that if it was only for the member of staff the anti-worker press would be asking "Why should the staff get free travel?"
1) Gosh, I wonder why a newspaper edited by a former Tory minister is attacking hard-won benefits enjoyed by unionised workers?
2) It's invalid to assert that the 'lost revenue' is equal to the value of the journeys taken - without the benefit some of the journeys may well not have been made at all.
I've no inherent objection to that, but you can bet that if it was only for the member of staff the anti-worker press would be asking "Why should the staff get free travel?"
'lost revenue' sounds rather bizarre to me. Staff pass use is not necessarily equivalent to lost revenue.
Isn't it pretty common for there to be a "partner pass" element of free travel in the railway industry?
Nym
Established Member
It would indeed, I'm not married so my partner wouldn't have been able to benefit from this travel benefit (back when I worked for them).
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Which is why I think the "nominee" is a better idea, so every member of staff gets to nominate one other person, rather than discriminating against the unmarried.
bb21
Emeritus Moderator
- Joined
- 4 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 24,151
Dick Murray got out the wrong side of the bed this morning.
Nym
Established Member
General opinion would be that the Staff Pass and Nominee Pass significantly influenced how long I continued to work for the company, if it where not provided I'd have left much sooner. Especially since the other benefits, pay and conditions eroded very significantly and very quickly in the last three to four years.
PBarnesHST
Member
- Joined
- 2 Apr 2019
- Messages
- 22
Even supermarkets like Sainsburys and M&S allow their employees to nominate someone who lives with them to receive the same discount as them
bramling
Veteran Member
Isn't that exactly how this scheme works? The condition being that the "nominee" must live at the same address as the member of staff.
If you restrict is to husband/wife then, as you rightly say, it's discriminatory to those who don't marry.
What I will say, is that there are no doubt people who use this scheme for their nominee to travel to/from work. This *is* rather unusual, as even something like a PRIV is generally intended for leisure use only (although hard to enforce in practice). In the case of London travel I could certainly see a case for restricting the nominee pass to off-peak usage only, but that's as far as I'd go.
pdeaves
Established Member
That, I think, is the crux. It's a staff perk. Plenty of other places give staff perks. I doubt the news outlets would get upset about supermarket perks but the principle is surely the same.
"Londoners shelling out thousands of pounds a year on groceries will rightly question why a handful of lucky people get to use a supermarket for free, just because they live with a supermarket employee", Mr Prince didn't say...
Harpers Tate
Established Member
- Joined
- 10 May 2013
- Messages
- 1,709
How can anyone conjuring up such a statistic know how many journeys would in fact have been made, were proper fares payable? For that - and only that (assuming no actual extra cost in accommodating these users) is the true measure of "loss". Not any theoretical figure had they all paid the going rate, or anything else. It is impossible to judge with any degree of accuracy.
paddington
Member
- Joined
- 19 Feb 2013
- Messages
- 964
TfL has "lost" hundreds of pounds of revenue from me because I've been walking instead of paying £1.50 for a 5 minute bus ride. If the fare was still 80p I might have paid it many times in the past decade.
pdeaves
Established Member
If the benefit is removed (provided at zero incremental cost), watch out for demands for higher pay (actual impact on the 'bottom line') to compensate.
Nym
Established Member
The only way a TfL employee where I was was going to get higher pay was to get right up the backside of senior managment or leave... Anything else would result in effective demotions and/or real term pay cuts for the remainder of your career... "Transformation".
I do remember a song going round the office that went along the lines of, "If you tolerate this, then your staff pass will be next."
Tube driver
Member
- Joined
- 7 Jan 2018
- Messages
- 118
Funny how these stories always come out when pay negotiations are ongoing. Just after a revised offer was released as well. Suspicious? Moi?
They can't but for some people, and I suspect the people getting upset about this are some of those, any public transport spend is a distress purchase that would only happen if there was no other option.
Surreytraveller
On Moderation
- Joined
- 21 Oct 2009
- Messages
- 2,810
Its not a perk. Its part of the terms and conditions of employment. Therefore it is part of staffs' remuneration.
By all means get rid of it, but they'll have to increase staff salaries to compensate.
By all means get rid of it, but they'll have to increase staff salaries to compensate.
Nym
Established Member
It's a non contractual discretionary benefit.
It does not form part of the terms of employment, it is not contractual and it has a zero net value. The latter is a discussion that has been had with HMRC.
Surreytraveller
On Moderation
- Joined
- 21 Oct 2009
- Messages
- 2,810
But surely if its been going for a certain length of time, it becomes custom and practice? Something that cannot just be taken away at the whim of the Mayor?
bramling
Veteran Member
One could argue “custom and practice”, but in reality I don’t think there’s any obligation to keep it.
Of course, with the current financial situation the company is currently desperate to find things it can give to staff rather than find money for extra pay, so taking away something that’s essentially free would be daft.
Surreytraveller
On Moderation
- Joined
- 21 Oct 2009
- Messages
- 2,810
If its also been used in job advertisements it could also be argued it is an implied condition of employment. It would be extremely difficult for them to take it away.
They may find that taking it away would cause users to travel to work by car instead, thereby increasing congestion etc
Journeyman
Established Member
- Joined
- 16 Apr 2014
- Messages
- 6,295
TfL changed the rules after a lesbian couple sued SWT for not letting the partner of the employee have a pass, sometime in the late nineties I think. The rules had changed to allow common law partners by then, but SWT interpreted that as excluding gay partners - it may have had something to do with Brian Souter's conservative evangelical Christian views.
SWT lost the case, and had to provide the partner with a pass, and so other TOCs followed suit. TfL changed the rules to allow every employee to nominate anyone else who lived at their address to have one, which seems sensible and fair to all, and involved a minimum of intrusion into people's private lives.
At that time same-sex couples were not allowed to have their relationships recognised in law, so this was de facto discrimination. This was compounded by mixed-sex couples no longer needing recognition in law by that time.
Just to clarify, this pass is not available for _anyone_ who lives at their address, it is only available for one person other than the staff member, and if the staff member joined pre-1996 they are not entitled to a nominee pass at all unless both they, and anyone who would be entitled to a Priv, chooses to forfeit having a Priv.
- Status