ASLEF Overtime Ban at TPE Suspended

[baz962]

Great news for both the public and the staff that want the rest day work. But I can't help feeling this looks bad for ASLEF as far as the public are concerned as it might look like the private toc were bad and the OLR and government are more amenable. And while telling the public that the government won't negotiate in good faith with the pay talks.

 

[Moonshot]

Some drivers will obviously want the extra money and will in working every available rest day.

Looking at the comments on here, some drivers won't be working for various reasons.

To restore normal service doesn't need every driver to work every rest day.

Today, at the time of writing, there are 88 cancellations or part cancellations. How many drivers are they short for this number of alterations?

Let's assume it's 15.

Admittedly, not every driver signs every route. Not every driver signs all the traction but if only 10% of their drivers volunteer to work a rest day then they will have enough.

However, one final thought. ASLEF look to have sanctioned the over time ban. But will there be enough militant hardliners (who believe that the national dispute should be settled first) to put the "softer" driver's off working?

What it really boils down to is choice......you either want to work a rest day , or take the time off. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

 

[Midlands5678]

Drivers during this time will welcome the extra pay.....

Let’s see.

Speaking as someone outside the industry, the solution must be to recruit enough drivers so that running a full timetable is not dependent on rest-day working. But we know DfT and the TOCs don't want to pay for the extra training, along with increased pension commitments etc. Is that more or less correct?

Exactly. They want the cheap unsustainable way out as always.

 

[ComUtoR]

Speaking as someone outside the industry, the solution must be to recruit enough drivers so that running a full timetable is not dependent on rest-day working. But we know DfT and the TOCs don't want to pay for the extra training, along with increased pension commitments etc. Is that more or less correct?

Pretty much correct but there is so much more than "recruit more Drivers"

The timetable isn't dependent on rest day working because the roster and depot establishment is based on the number of diagrams at that depot. I don't know the technicalities of the establishment levels at TPE but a true Driver shortage is where you literally have vacancies in the rosters and that is very hard to recover from.

Rest day working is used to relieve annual leave, training, sickness and other operational needs. The problem is that how do you manage that ? Leave is pretty fixed but do you have a surplus of spare Drivers to cover any and all eventualities or manage is closer to the bone ? I find is weird that Management see Drivers sitting about spare as an issue. Surely that means everything is running as planned. How much capacity should a TOC build in ? I'm sure the media (and they have) will just report 'Drivers sitting about in mess rooms doing nothing'

There is also the issue of where you increase establishment levels Driver Managers other operational needs also increase with it. Other than the training etc. You have to consider that there is a Manager/Driver ratio. You may find yourself needing to increase Driver Managers etc. Instructors, Rules training, traction training etc. all increase alongside any increase in Drivers.

When you are calculating how many Drivers are required, its done by some mythical and magical calculation. All those operational requirements are technically built in so that you don't need rest day working. Some of these calculations have been around for decades and have never changed. Modern culture means that people go sick the second they sneeze of their goldfish dies. Training is far more intensive and competency requirements are more demanding. We also have a load of Drivers who are part time, reduced hours, job shares, restricted duties, accommodated etc. That can have a huge detrimental affect on the timetable and running of a TOC. I think there needs to be an admission that the diagram/Driver rations need to increase on a base level and employment practices need to change quite dramatically.

There are considerations too.

 

[156421]

Not necessarily. With the continued hot weather I prefer to spend my free time with my family.

Not everyone has a family.

 

[basfordlad]

Not everyone has a family.

And those that do will appreciate more money at times

 

[156421]

And those that do will appreciate more money at times

Exactly. You can't put a price on family time... but somewhere between double and triple pay is probably a common threshold?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Exactly. You can't put a price on family time... but somewhere between double and triple pay is probably a common threshold?

And you can have too much family time. My Mum used to work Boxing Day every year, it was triple and time off in lieu, but also because she needed a day off from a house full of excitable children!

 

[Peter Sarf]

Speaking as someone outside the industry, the solution must be to recruit enough drivers so that running a full timetable is not dependent on rest-day working. But we know DfT and the TOCs don't want to pay for the extra training, along with increased pension commitments etc. Is that more or less correct?

It does seem a bad way to run a business when it consistently relies so heavily on overtime. If it were just for seasonal variations or the odd market demand then fine but TPE seem to run on empty as Avanti did.

Pretty much correct but there is so much more than "recruit more Drivers"

The timetable isn't dependent on rest day working because the roster and depot establishment is based on the number of diagrams at that depot. I don't know the technicalities of the establishment levels at TPE but a true Driver shortage is where you literally have vacancies in the rosters and that is very hard to recover from.

Rest day working is used to relieve annual leave, training, sickness and other operational needs. The problem is that how do you manage that ? Leave is pretty fixed but do you have a surplus of spare Drivers to cover any and all eventualities or manage is closer to the bone ? I find is weird that Management see Drivers sitting about spare as an issue. Surely that means everything is running as planned. How much capacity should a TOC build in ? I'm sure the media (and they have) will just report 'Drivers sitting about in mess rooms doing nothing'

There is also the issue of where you increase establishment levels Driver Managers other operational needs also increase with it. Other than the training etc. You have to consider that there is a Manager/Driver ratio. You may find yourself needing to increase Driver Managers etc. Instructors, Rules training, traction training etc. all increase alongside any increase in Drivers.

When you are calculating how many Drivers are required, its done by some mythical and magical calculation. All those operational requirements are technically built in so that you don't need rest day working. Some of these calculations have been around for decades and have never changed. Modern culture means that people go sick the second they sneeze of their goldfish dies. Training is far more intensive and competency requirements are more demanding. We also have a load of Drivers who are part time, reduced hours, job shares, restricted duties, accommodated etc. That can have a huge detrimental affect on the timetable and running of a TOC. I think there needs to be an admission that the diagram/Driver rations need to increase on a base level and employment practices need to change quite dramatically.

There are considerations too.

I think the heavy training requirement, so cost in time and money, for a driver is always going put a lot of higher management off training and development. We do have a culture in the UK of not training staff but poaching staff from else where. I saw it in IT where rather than training their own staff companies would eye up staff from other companies/industries. I noticed how many poaching calls I got once I had finished a course or two. That does not work so well with train drivers as people from non-rail industries don't have transferable skills of course.

And you can have too much family time. My Mum used to work Boxing Day every year, it was triple and time off in lieu, but also because she needed a day off from a house full of excitable children!

Oh damn - now I have visions of you as an excitable child .

Another excuse for overtime is watching mortgage interest rates go up from stupidly low to very low !. In my day (1988-1989 iirc) they went from 8% - normal to 16% - high !.

 

[mandub]

Pretty much correct but there is so much more than "recruit more Drivers"

The timetable isn't dependent on rest day working because the roster and depot establishment is based on the number of diagrams at that depot. I don't know the technicalities of the establishment levels at TPE but a true Driver shortage is where you literally have vacancies in the rosters and that is very hard to recover from.

Rest day working is used to relieve annual leave, training, sickness and other operational needs. The problem is that how do you manage that ? Leave is pretty fixed but do you have a surplus of spare Drivers to cover any and all eventualities or manage is closer to the bone ? I find is weird that Management see Drivers sitting about spare as an issue. Surely that means everything is running as planned. How much capacity should a TOC build in ? I'm sure the media (and they have) will just report 'Drivers sitting about in mess rooms doing nothing'

There is also the issue of where you increase establishment levels Driver Managers other operational needs also increase with it. Other than the training etc. You have to consider that there is a Manager/Driver ratio. You may find yourself needing to increase Driver Managers etc. Instructors, Rules training, traction training etc. all increase alongside any increase in Drivers.

When you are calculating how many Drivers are required, its done by some mythical and magical calculation. All those operational requirements are technically built in so that you don't need rest day working. Some of these calculations have been around for decades and have never changed. Modern culture means that people go sick the second they sneeze of their goldfish dies. Training is far more intensive and competency requirements are more demanding. We also have a load of Drivers who are part time, reduced hours, job shares, restricted duties, accommodated etc. That can have a huge detrimental affect on the timetable and running of a TOC. I think there needs to be an admission that the diagram/Driver rations need to increase on a base level and employment practices need to change quite dramatically.

There are considerations too.

Yep.

And I'd add...for TPE (and Northern a bit too)

The number of different traction types to learn and sign is too high.
The limited number of routes new drivers sign on passing out.
The splitting up of full routes between depots requiring multiple drivers/guards to run a service.

 

[Wyrleybart]

Maybe the new MD might reverse the roster changes of a few years ago.

You cannot revert though.
From what i remember reading about TPE's Nova initial plans the 68+Mk5 rakes were to work the Scarboroughs and some Redcars. Redcar then morphed into Middlesbrough then Saltburn due to walking routes. Then the Scarborough residents complained about the noisy 68s. More recently the locohauled sets seem to be working Cleethorpes circuits.

This series of changes implies TPE has been regularly changing policies. Policy changes often cost money

 

[12LDA28C]

It does seem a bad way to run a business when it consistently relies so heavily on overtime. If it were just for seasonal variations or the odd market demand then fine but TPE seem to run on empty as Avanti did.

This is nothing new. The railway as an industry has been run on overtime for decades, simply because it's cheaper to pay Rest Day Work then to employ enough drivers.

 

[Carlisle]

, simply because it's cheaper to pay Rest Day Work than to employ enough drivers.

When was the golden era the railway employed enough drivers though ? Sundays have been booked overtime for as long as I can remember which is the early 1980s

 

[43066]

Speaking as someone outside the industry, the solution must be to recruit enough drivers so that running a full timetable is not dependent on rest-day working. But we know DfT and the TOCs don't want to pay for the extra training, along with increased pension commitments etc. Is that more or less correct?

Pretty much spot on. The other solution is to have a RDW agreement and not destroy goodwill.

Great news for both the public and the staff that want the rest day work. But I can't help feeling this looks bad for ASLEF as far as the public are concerned as it might look like the private toc were bad and the OLR and government are more amenable. And while telling the public that the government won't negotiate in good faith with the pay talks.

ASLEF will get the blame whatever happens.

Not everyone has a family.

And not everyone without a family wants to spend their free time at work.

When was the golden era the railway employed enough drivers though ? Sundays have been booked overtime for as long as I can remember which is the early 1980s

Never?

 

[Bletchleyite]

And not everyone without a family wants to spend their free time at work

And here's the great thing about overtime - if you want to do it, you can do it, and if you don't want to do it you don't have to. Enough people clearly want to do it for it to be a viable way to run even if it'd be in many ways better if it wasn't the case.

(I oppose mandatory rest days - for me Sunday should be in the week properly or wholly optional, ideally the former)

 

[basfordlad]

Think people affected by increased mortgages etc will be grateful for the over time! Regardless of their views etc

 

[12LDA28C]

When was the golden era the railway employed enough drivers though ? Sundays have been booked overtime for as long as I can remember which is the early 1980s

Indeed, which was why I said it's been like that for decades although regarding Sundays, in the 1980s far fewer trains ran on a Sunday than they do today. There is much more justification for Sundays to be part of the normal working week now than there ever has been.

 

[Dieseldriver]

(I oppose mandatory rest days - for me Sunday should be in the week properly or wholly optional, ideally the former)

Sorry just to clarify, do you mean you oppose mandatory working of your rest days?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sorry just to clarify, do you mean you oppose mandatory working of your rest days?

Correct, e.g. the idea of a "Sunday rota" of committed rest days.

 

[43066]

And here's the great thing about overtime - if you want to do it, you can do it, and if you don't want to do it you don't have to. Enough people clearly want to do it for it to be a viable way to run even if it'd be in many ways better if it wasn't the case.

(I oppose mandatory rest days - for me Sunday should be in the week properly or wholly optional, ideally the former)

Agreed.

And of course, just as rest days are optional, the company correspondingly has no obligation to make them available and could stop doing so at any time, so they should never be relied upon.

All perfectly normal in many industries, it’s only on the railway that people who don’t put themselves forward to work overtime get accused of refusing to work!

Correct, e.g. the idea of a "Sunday rota" of committed rest days.

This is the best of both worlds, and it can be negotiated for (and has been at my TOC) by simply offering existing drivers a choice of whether to change their Ts and Cs, with all new joiners having Sundays inside.

 

[trebor79]

Tracy Brabin, Labour Mayor of West Yorkshire, said the government taking control of the company had been "a reset moment, enabling us to work together to find solutions to problems created by the failing operator".

What exactly has the Mayor of West Yorkshire (the term itself is almost comical) got to do with running TPE or resolving the dispute? Or is it just a Labour wannabe politician trying to make a case for nationalisation of te industry?

 

[43066]

What exactly has the Mayor of West Yorkshire (the term itself is almost comical) got to do with running TPE or resolving the dispute? Or is it just a Labour wannabe politician trying to make a case for nationalisation of te industry?

I suppose in the sense that the railway functioning (or not!) is integral to the local economy, it’s valid that they have a view.

I certainly seem to remember Boris Johnson weighing in re. tube strikes during his London mayoralty!

 

[Bald Rick]

Speaking as someone outside the industry, the solution must be to recruit enough drivers so that running a full timetable is not dependent on rest-day working. But we know DfT and the TOCs don't want to pay for the extra training, along with increased pension commitments etc. Is that more or less correct?

Thing is, the number of drivers needed and available varies over the year. There’s never a problem January - March, and always a problem in December / Summer. So do you have enough drivers to cover all requirements at the absolute peak, and have drivers sitting around doing nothing for the rest of the year, perhaps as many as 20% in the first three months of the year?

Remember that overtime suits everyone - the company and those doing it.

 

[Bow Fell]

Agreed.

And of course, just as rest days are optional, the company correspondingly has no obligation to make them available and could stop doing so at any time, so they should never be relied upon.

All perfectly normal in many industries, it’s only on the railway that people who don’t put themselves forward to work overtime get accused of refusing to work!



This is the best of both worlds, and it can be negotiated for (and has been at my TOC) by simply offering existing drivers a choice of whether to change their Ts and Cs, with all new joiners having Sundays inside.

That’s the problem, there might be all sorts of things that might mean there’s a collective reason that no one might volunteer for RDW, I mean look at the weather we’ve had recently. As soon as the stars align, sickness, AL and not enough RDW volunteers, resulting in jobs uncovered guess who gets the blame, yep you guessed it the drivers and ASLEF again.

One question that I pose that never gets answered about Sundays and it’s relevant to me here, is committed Sundays in the middle of annual leave

Now my ideal Sunday working is committed Sunday’s but you can be NA if there’s cover available, but it has its downfalls.

Now, I’ve got annual leave booked and my committed Sunday falls within my two weeks leave, now that’s for rosters to cover, it’s during my leave, so if it’s uncovered not my problem. I won’t be in the country, so I can’t work it regardless. Now I’m sure the attitude of some on here would expect me to fly back off holiday so it didn’t go uncovered. (By the way this is the first committed Sunday of 2023 I’ve been NA for, and have asked for another one later this year with over 5 months notice if that’s ok with the anti-rail staff brigade of course)

But that is one of the problems with Sundays outside, if there’s block annual leave with Sunday NA in the middle, it creates an issue, what if there’s no one to work it? Do we go down the road of restricting annual leave involving Sundays, it would never work.

Just food for thought for those, who think the Sunday issue is easily solvable.

 

[Bletchleyite]

That’s the problem, there might be all sorts of things that might mean there’s a collective reason that no one might volunteer for RDW, I mean look at the weather we’ve had recently. As soon as the stars align, sickness, AL and not enough RDW volunteers, resulting in jobs uncovered guess who gets the blame, yep you guessed it the drivers and ASLEF again.

Every man has his price. Obviously things like good weather and the Cup Final mean fewer volunteers, but if the TOC bumps up what they're offering likely they'll tip the balance back again.

I generally consider Christmas Day pretty sacred for family reasons, and my job is unlikely to involve working it anyway, but if you offered me something like 5x time I probably would, we could have a family Boxing Day or 24th instead, and some of that money could go into making it better than usual to compensate.

 

[12LDA28C]

Now my ideal Sunday working is committed Sunday’s but you can be NA if there’s cover available, but it has its downfalls.

Your ideal Sunday working is committed Sundays? Seriously? So if you desperately need a Sunday off but can't get cover then you have to come into work. Doesn't sound very ideal to me.

A much more 'ideal' solution would be something like if a driver needs a booked Sunday off, they can put a request in writing to Rosters up until 14 days in advance of that Sunday and get the day off guaranteed. Less than 14 days' notice and the job has to be covered otherwise the booked driver has to come in and do their own shift.

 

[156421]

Pretty much spot on. The other solution is to have a RDW agreement and not destroy goodwill.



ASLEF will get the blame whatever happens.



And not everyone without a family wants to spend their free time at work.



Never?

And not everyone without a family wants to spend their free time not at work. Conjure that one.

 

[ainsworth74]

And not everyone without a family wants to spend their free time not at work. Conjure that one.

It's almost as if most people value different factors in different ways isn't it? Therefore they will come to different individual conclusions as to how they value things like earning extra income by doing more work and having less free time or ability to see people vs having more free time to spend doing things they want to do or seeing the people they wish to see. Mad idea I know but still

 

[Bald Rick]

A much more 'ideal' solution would be something like if a driver needs a booked Sunday off, they can put a request in writing to Rosters up until 14 days in advance of that Sunday and get the day off guaranteed. Less than 14 days' notice and the job has to be covered otherwise the booked driver has to come in and do their own shift.

But what happens if applied for more than 2 weeks out and no one volunteers to cover for the shift?

 

[12LDA28C]

But what happens if applied for more than 2 weeks out and no one volunteers to cover for the shift?

In that very unlikely scenario, trains would get cancelled. Pretty rare for that to happen in my experience. Last resort is a cover driver would get used on the day.