Has SWR furloughed any guards ?

[winks]

They introduced a slightly reduced timetable a couple of weeks ago so what happens to all the guards are they being paid to sit at home and do nothing ?

 

[LowLevel]

If it's anything like our place guards and drivers are still at a premium owing to shielding, COVID positive cases and track and trace isolations. Part of the rationale for the reduced service is the reduced number of available staff.

There is an agreement in place that if a member of staff isn't allocated a train to work they will be available at home to come in at short notice if required, so it is theoretically possible yes to be paid to do nothing.

Personally I've not had a spare at home shift in a very, very long time. I was pencilled in for one last week and got called up with 36 hours notice to work a diagram.

 

[DelW]

I thought I'd read on one of the forums that the furlough scheme isn't available to franchise operator TOCs. Since all their costs, including staff wages, are being met by taxpayers, there's no reason for them to use it.

 

[Watershed]

I thought I'd read on one of the forums that the furlough scheme isn't available to franchise operator TOCs. Since all their costs, including staff wages, are being met by taxpayers, there's no reason for them to use it.

The only conceivable reason would be to avail of the 'cover' of the CJRS to instigate a 20% pay cut - in fact rather more than 20% for staff earning over £30k. But that seems unlikely, at least right now.