The unions would, yes.
The members wouldn’t though, as most (if not all) like being able to work rest days and do overtime to earn extra money.
But the unions represent the members wishes, don’t they?
Meanwhile I was speaking to a driver today in a company with a Rest Day ban in place. He desperately wants to work some rest days, so I suggested he talk to his rep about it. “Can’t do that, that would look bad, and we can’t ever suggest to the reps that we do something against what they decide”
Im not sure an anecdotal story about one driver not wanting to approach his reps to enquire about a RD ban is particularly helpful .
Of course unions as democratic organisations represent the wishes of their members, currently for ASLEF as they are the union we are speaking about Sundays inside the working week and full employment with no RDW is a charter commitment .
If a member could convince enough members of their own branch to support a resolution to change the charter , and then as a whole union issue convince the annual conference to change the charter . Then the charter would be changed . Or more locally if they want to challenge what their company council reps are doing they could pass a resolution to change that or even get a sufficient number to challenge them at branch meetings to inform them of their wishes with regards RDW
Sitting in a mess room lawyering about it or speaking to a member of the public about their wishes isnt going to change it .
Im sure you will retort back that theyll be discouraged from doing any of the above by their reps . But if they stood up to this and did get a sufficient number to support them they could change things , plenty of people are quite happy to just pay their dues every month and see it as an insurance policy , when it can and should be seen as more than that .
Certainly where I am , its not all traincrew that like RDW . Theres about 1/4 of the depot that when there is an agreement will work every RDW they can get and do 12hrs as many days as they can basically they live at the place when they can , about half the depot that will work the odd extra here or there to pay for a holiday or christmas or pension AVC's etc and then about another 1/4 that wont work anything they don't have to including on the day overtime . People drift from group to group depending on circumstances .
No doubt.
Though in most other industries with shift work, there are people who have the specific job of designing rosters, rather than taking a lot of people out of their (rather well paid) normal job to do it.
And at most TOC's Links are negotiable items as per collective bargaining agreements so it would require a negotiation for them to no longer be negotiable .
Some TOCs release scores of reps for weeks at a time…
They also release scores of reps on spurious managing for attendance meetings , stupid discliplinarys that go nowehere or nonesnse safety of line investigations . A handful of days to get staff buy in on arguably one of the most important issues for staff really isnt a great price .
The minute the links are up on the wall for any traincrew grade they are scrutinised in detail . If theres a mistake or some detrimental change the reps hear about it loud and clear . That would only be amplified and lead to more distrust and ill feeling if it was management that made a mistake or gave one link consistently worse work than another .
We have two reps per depot. They will all get released during rostering and scrutineering time. Some depots will do this pretty quick, some take numerous days of negotiation and discussion. Two Drivers out of 70+ at my depot who get released for Union duties has a very minimal impact on the service. You might say that the roster is designed for this exact situation.
Again, this relationship between TOC/Union is a positive one and should be supported.
Indeed one of the calculable figures for spare coverage in our formula is staff rep release .
To be honest from what ive seen the reps during these days release for links & diagrams will also get other things done that they'd otherwise be released for anyway .