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More Northern Resist commuter protests today at Bolton

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Djgr

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https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...-station-in-protest-over-increased-rail-fares
The campaigners are demanding that Northern, or any new operator that takes over if it loses the franchise, “cancel today’s fare increase to reflect the dire service”.

Sutton said trains are often so busy that people faint: “No one should be forced to lose consciousness on their way to work.”

Another protester, Karen Hon, a teacher and local Labour party campaign coordinator, said: “In a lot of the townships, not just Bolton, the industries have gone. People rely on being able to commute to the cities for work.”
Clearly the fight is not over yet.
 
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Antman

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And if you remember they are being kept off the new TPE services.

Don’t blame them
 

Andyh82

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There are always protests on the day the fares go up, there were some on the news today.

They often involve the RMT which I always find a tad ironic.
 

sheff1

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If they want to mount a real protest they should take advice from the French.
 

RAPC

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Protests at Bolton might be more about TPE not stopping trains there than about Northern

It’s an anti (Arriva) Northern group protest. They recently did one at Victoria as well. Nothing to do with TPE.
 

HullRailMan

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They might want to vent their frustrations at the unions - most of the fare increase just covers the cost of union negotiated pay rises.
 

AM9

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They might want to vent their frustrations at the unions - most of the fare increase just covers the cost of union negotiated pay rises.
How much of the 2.7% increase (average) was down to the inflation over the year?
 

Grannyjoans

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They might want to vent their frustrations at the unions - most of the fare increase just covers the cost of union negotiated pay rises.

Pay rises have to keep up with inflation otherwise it's like a having a pay drop



Underinvestment by the DFT is to blame for the state of the Northern network. Between (at least) the 1980's up to 2015 it had seen very little investment. It had been neglected for too long.
 
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Grumpy Git

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*Citation needed

'cos Grant Shapps said so on TV news yesterday (Thursday) morning with almost his first breath..................

Am I imagining it, or have government ministers got more "cocky" in TV interviews since the election?
 

YorkshireBear

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Pay rises have to keep up with inflation otherwise it's like a having a pay drop

And yet the rest of the country manages with less than inflation pay rises.

I accept that in theory everyone should get inflation every year but they don't and I don't think it is a human right to get it, especially when the service is so poor. It is irrelevant that its not the train crews fault, they work for a failing company. Bonuses in many firms are based on company scorecards, it might be irrelevant if the poor scores are to do with you. The company isn't doing well so the pay rises aren't as high. With this effect more pronounced as you go up the management tree.

For the record I work in the railway bubble, I've had inflation pay rises for last few years and everytime I've looked at it and gone this is a joke and increased my charitable donations.
 

scrapy

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I accept that in theory everyone should get inflation every year but they don't and I don't think it is a human right to get it, especially when the service is so poor. It is irrelevant that its not the train crews fault, they work for a failing company. Bonuses in many firms are based on company scorecards, it might be irrelevant if the poor scores are to do with you. The company isn't doing well so the pay rises aren't as high. With this effect more pronounced as you go up the management tree.
So why did management grades at Northern get a 3.9% pay rise in 2019? Which is 30% higher than the pay rise given to non management grades.
 

2L70

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It’s an anti (Arriva) Northern group protest. They recently did one at Victoria as well. Nothing to do with TPE.

Seen this lot on Facebook, they post up Northern job adverts and encourage people to apply and “infiltrate the scum”. Ok then.

It’s a Railway themed Taxpayers alliance effectively. Big bonuses at work at the end of the year, corporate funding and targeting those who are on a fraction of what they earn, instead of those who make the decisions.
 

YorkshireBear

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So why did management grades at Northern get a 3.9% pay rise in 2019? Which is 30% higher than the pay rise given to non management grades.

I agree thats a joke.

I was trying to say how it should work not what northern does work like.
 
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Western Lord

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There are always protests on the day the fares go up, there were some on the news today.

They often involve the RMT which I always find a tad ironic.
The BBC had a woman on a Northern train complaining that "the fares go up but we don't get anything for it". She was sitting in a brand new train.
 

td97

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Good choice of day, 89% PPM overall and 94.4% for North Manchester after the am peak. No pleasing some people
 

Djgr

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Good choice of day, 89% PPM overall and 94.4% for North Manchester after the am peak. No pleasing some people

So one day makes up for months and months of disastrous performance! (of which PPM catastrophe is only one of a litany of failures)
 

Bantamzen

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Seen this lot on Facebook, they post up Northern job adverts and encourage people to apply and “infiltrate the scum”. Ok then.

It’s a Railway themed Taxpayers alliance effectively. Big bonuses at work at the end of the year, corporate funding and targeting those who are on a fraction of what they earn, instead of those who make the decisions.

So when they "infiltrate" Northern, I assume they will take responsibility for what happens with the franchise....? Of course they won't, typical keyboard warrior hyperbole. They would be far better off putting pressure on their MPs, setting up user groups & generally educating themselves on what the issues really are.

As for the issue of pay rises, and speaking as someone who routinely gets less than 1% pa simply because of the austerity measures put in place many years ago, there are good reasons for giving specialist staff inflation level rises. People who work in jobs that require considerable lengths of training, or have safety critical jobs are far less easy to replace than some other professions. It is one of the reasons why the health care sector is increasingly in trouble as successive governments have scrimped on public sector pay rises, and as a result many within it fall away as costs rise against their income.
 

2L70

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So when they "infiltrate" Northern, I assume they will take responsibility for what happens with the franchise....? Of course they won't, typical keyboard warrior hyperbole. They would be far better off putting pressure on their MPs, setting up user groups & generally educating themselves on what the issues really are.

It gives your woman something to talk about in All Bar One with her work colleagues on a Friday i suppose.
 

Jamesrob637

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Pay rises have to keep up with inflation otherwise it's like a having a pay drop



Underinvestment by the DFT is to blame for the state of the Northern network. Between (at least) the 1980's up to 2015 it had seen very little investment. It had been neglected for too long.

They thought Northerners would continue to move South and the reverse has happened!
 

Tom Quinne

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And yet the rest of the country manages with less than inflation pay rises.

I accept that in theory everyone should get inflation every year but they don't and I don't think it is a human right to get it, especially when the service is so poor. It is irrelevant that its not the train crews fault, they work for a failing company. Bonuses in many firms are based on company scorecards, it might be irrelevant if the poor scores are to do with you. The company isn't doing well so the pay rises aren't as high. With this effect more pronounced as you go up the management tree.

For the record I work in the railway bubble, I've had inflation pay rises for last few years and everytime I've looked at it and gone this is a joke and increased my charitable donations.

Aren’t you a saint then.

The company MAY be poor but that doesn’t mean ground floor staff on the end of everyone who thinks it’s their right to abuse and threaten staff should suffer with zero or 0.5% pay “raises”.
 

hwl

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4th year in a row with a price rise but for TFL the price has been frozen for the 4th year running!
But not travelcard or related issues (caps) or what will be crossrail (DfT made sure those were NR fares).

TfL finances are a complete mess as a result. Piccadilly line resignalling postponed as they maxed out their borrowing, extra Northern line and Jubilee line trains cancelled. Bakerloo (50+y.o.) and Central Line train replacement pushed further back.

It was all fingers crossed touching wood assumption that Crossrail and lots of other capacity schemes would be on time / budget and deliver extra revenue before the next mayoral election this May.
 

YorkshireBear

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Aren’t you a saint then.

The company MAY be poor but that doesn’t mean ground floor staff on the end of everyone who thinks it’s their right to abuse and threaten staff should suffer with zero or 0.5% pay “raises”.

I never said zero or 0.5%, I said less than inflation. RPI, was 2.2, CPI was 1.5%, I'd say 1.5% is reasonable for front line staff and management would be on less, as you say they aren't the ones facing the passengers.
And as I said, the higher up the tree the more reductions from wage rise for poor performance there is. For example company performance might make up 25% of a guards pay rise. But for a low level manager it might be 50% and a high level manager 100%.

I'm not a saint, I'm suggesting that companies that perform poorly should not be offering their staff inflation wage increases (higher than most of the passengers would ever get) while delivering an unbelievably poor service which from their perspective is getting worse!
 
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YorkshireBear

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As for the issue of pay rises, and speaking as someone who routinely gets less than 1% pa simply because of the austerity measures put in place many years ago, there are good reasons for giving specialist staff inflation level rises. People who work in jobs that require considerable lengths of training, or have safety critical jobs are far less easy to replace than some other professions. It is one of the reasons why the health care sector is increasingly in trouble as successive governments have scrimped on public sector pay rises, and as a result many within it fall away as costs rise against their income.

That is a good point, but leads us to situations where staff that do not fit that catagory get the same financial rumeration just because others do. Somewhere it has to give.
 
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