Northern Rail crew shortages.

[Tomnick]

At the risk of asking a question that's probably come up before, why don't TOCs develop a pool of staff who are purely employed to cover rest days and other contingencies like staff sickness and holidays?

There's not usually a specific pool of staff for that, but rest days will be built into the link and naturally covered by other staff elsewhere in the link - so no problem there. There will also be a number of 'spare' turns built into the link, which provides the contingency for sickness, annual leave and so on. That way, at least, they're only at risk of being messed about a bit when they're booked spare.

Contrast that to the situation in the signalling grades, where there are usually general purpose relief staff to cover sickness, annual leave and so on, who are booked spare for the majority (or all) of the time apart from rest days - but receive a fairly substantial flexibility premium for their trouble. Some areas still, if I'm not mistaken, have rest day relief staff purely to cover, as the name suggests, residents' rest days - in our area, though, as with traincrew, rest days are built into the base roster so that most, or all, turns are covered by a resident somewhere on the base roster.

 

[ComUtoR]

At the risk of asking a question that's probably come up before, why don't TOCs develop a pool of staff who are purely employed to cover rest days and other contingencies like staff sickness and holidays?

Casualisation. The unions will have a bigger issue with that; and have.

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Northern Rail management have run a cynical campaign throughout the balloting period attempting to bully staff through a series of attacks on RMT union officials and a barrage of totally false propaganda. Despite that RMT members have voted by almost 58% for action .

The result will now be considered by RMT’s executive

The dispute is over a growing move to casualise rail functions through the use of cheapskate agencies at the expense of permanent jobs and negotiated pay and working conditions. RMT has completely destroyed Northern Rails bogus claims that they are only “trialling” the use of casual staff when the fact is that over a period of time they have escalated the use of agency workers into core areas of their business with the sole objective of being able to undercut pay and conditions while opening up the opportunity to hire and fire at will.

RMT has said throughout that there is no doubt that the company policy is to roll out the use of casual staff into all possible areas of their operations, effectively delivering skilled rail jobs on the “lump”, impacting on all permanent staff in the name of “flexibility” and profit. That is why RMT balloted all members for strike action because every single employee is threatened by this introduction of wholesale casualisation by stealth. ...

The answer is more staff, changes to rostering, and changes to working practices.

Not that I want a debate about casualisation and it being the thin edge of the wedge but...

...runs for the hills

 

[driver_m]

At the risk of asking a question that's probably come up before, why don't TOCs develop a pool of staff who are purely employed to cover rest days and other contingencies like staff sickness and holidays?

They already effectively do this. Thats why you have staff rostered spare, both on individual days and also for a full week. The numbers employed at a depot are meant to cover a guaranteed number of people being off on both rest days and a guaranteed number for annual leave be it a full week or individual days, and to cover some sickness. The problem comes obviously when more are off sick or when staff leave and their jobs are not replaced. This can be covered by people working rest days if it is allowed, but the trouble can happen when this becomes relied upon rather than actually employ people that should be there in the first place.

 

[Greenback]

It's pretty complicated. TOC's don't want too many spare drivers sitting around, and unplanned vacancies can occur when staff leave for other companies or a career outside the industry.

Leaving aside group action to withdraw from Sunday working, cancellation usually occur when a depot or company is under establishment to start with, and this is then compounded by unforeseen absence such as special leave, sickness, jury service or whatever. If there are insufficient spare turns and volunteers to work extra, then turns can't be covered.

Also, we need to remember that it may not be possible for some staff to provide cover even if they want to due to rest requirements.

 

[Llama]

It also happens when training is neglected long-term leaving large numbers of drivers without the route & traction knowledge they require to do their day-to-day work, and having the spare men pick up the bits of work that the 'booked man' doesn't sign.

 

[Greenback]

It also happens when training is neglected long-term leaving large numbers of drivers without the route & traction knowledge they require to do their day-to-day work, and having the spare men pick up the bits of work that the 'booked man' doesn't sign.

Yes, I think that's another factor in the equation.

 

[fgwrich]

Wrong Thread.

 

[HSTEd]

Sunday is not a 'special day' in retail as regards the staff. The restricted opening hours were agreed after pressure from religious organisations. Even then you could argue that neither Jews or Muslims see Sunday as special

Not just religious organisations.
For one thing USDAW backed no Sunday opening at the time - because allowing Sunday opening was seen as an inevitable stepping stone to compulsary shifts on Sundays and the elimination of the one day when people could be sure they would be off work in advance. And lo and behold - that is essentially what has happened/is happening.

 

[TUC]

At the risk of asking a question that's probably come up before, why don't TOCs develop a pool of staff who are purely employed to cover rest days and other contingencies like staff sickness and holidays?

Casualisation. The unions will have a bigger issue with that; and have.

http://rmt.live.rss-hosting.co.uk/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=174024&int1stParentNodeID=89732

Northern Rail management have run a cynical campaign throughout the balloting period attempting to bully staff through a series of attacks on RMT union officials and a barrage of totally false propaganda. Despite that RMT members have voted by almost 58% for action .

The result will now be considered by RMT’s executive

The dispute is over a growing move to casualise rail functions through the use of cheapskate agencies at the expense of permanent jobs and negotiated pay and working conditions. RMT has completely destroyed Northern Rails bogus claims that they are only “trialling” the use of casual staff when the fact is that over a period of time they have escalated the use of agency workers into core areas of their business with the sole objective of being able to undercut pay and conditions while opening up the opportunity to hire and fire at will.

RMT has said throughout that there is no doubt that the company policy is to roll out the use of casual staff into all possible areas of their operations, effectively delivering skilled rail jobs on the “lump”, impacting on all permanent staff in the name of “flexibility” and profit. That is why RMT balloted all members for strike action because every single employee is threatened by this introduction of wholesale casualisation by stealth. ...

The answer is more staff, changes to rostering, and changes to working practices.

Not that I want a debate about casualisation and it being the thin edge of the wedge but...

...runs for the hills

But I wasn't meaning in terms of using external agencies for staff. What I was talking about are a pool of staff employed by the TOC on mainstream hourly pay and conditions but whose number of working hours vary according to the need to cover rest days, leave etc.-not, I hasten to add, as a general approach for all staff, but there must be both existing and potential staff who, for family reasons or due to approaching retirement etc., do not want to have a fixed, full working week but who would be happy to be able to flexibly take on cover work as suits their own commitments and the varying needs of the company.

 

[Tomnick]

Rest days are fixed within the roster, so the requirements to cover them are known in advance - so it makes perfect sense to build that cover into the base roster. Annual leave and sickness cover is a little less predictable, but a more consistent and appropriate level of spare cover can be provided if that too is built into the base roster. What you describe sounds rather like a zero hours contract, which is a route that I don't think many folk would like to see the TOCs start to head down...

 

[TUC]

It doesn't have to be a zero hours contract. It could be an annualised hours contract where the employee is contracted to work a certain
number of hours per year but it's for agreement between them and their employer re: the dates they actually work.

 

[Tomnick]

What's the point though? There's already spare cover built into the base roster, and rest days don't come into it at all (if they're shown as RD, they're not booked to work a turn, so there's nothing to cover!).

 

[ComUtoR]

What I was talking about are a pool of staff employed by the TOC on mainstream hourly pay and conditions but whose number of working hours vary according to the need to cover rest days, leave etc.

That's what casualisation is. You start reducing your workforce from full time down to part time then down to the dregs of casual labor and contracting.

You're introducing part time working and separate terms and conditions. It makes no difference where those employees come from they are interchangeable with agency staff. Who are; a pool of staff employed by the TOC on mainstream hourly pay and conditions but whose number of working hours vary according to the need to cover rest days, leave etc.

Will it solve the Sunday working "problem" ? 100% yes it would but the consequences are far reaching and would need a dedicated thread all on its own. As it stands; as mentioned above. The roster is supposed to facilitate leave, sickness, training and various needs of the business.

In the interest of full disclose and the fact that Google culture will find it eventually. The unions will publicly speak out against any form of casualisation and certainly bash agency work and zero hour contracts but they are bring it through the back door anyway.

 

[trainophile]

Half a dozen trainee guards on the 1220 ex-Southport I'm on.

 

[TUC]

What I was talking about are a pool of staff employed by the TOC on mainstream hourly pay and conditions but whose number of working hours vary according to the need to cover rest days, leave etc.

That's what casualisation is. You start reducing your workforce from full time down to part time then down to the dregs of casual labor and contracting.

You're introducing part time working and separate terms and conditions. It makes no difference where those employees come from they are interchangeable with agency staff. Who are; a pool of staff employed by the TOC on mainstream hourly pay and conditions but whose number of working hours vary according to the need to cover rest days, leave etc.

Will it solve the Sunday working "problem" ? 100% yes it would but the consequences are far reaching and would need a dedicated thread all on its own. As it stands; as mentioned above. The roster is supposed to facilitate leave, sickness, training and various needs of the business.

In the interest of full disclose and the fact that Google culture will find it eventually. The unions will publicly speak out against any form of casualisation and certainly bash agency work and zero hour contracts but they are bring it through the back door anyway.

but where does developing a diverse, family-friendly approach to fit staff who don't want a full working week or rigid shift patterns fit into that?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

What's the point though? There's already spare cover built into the base roster, and rest days don't come into it at all (if they're shown as RD, they're not booked to work a turn, so there's nothing to cover!).

i If there really was enough capacity in the system then the issue of staff voluntarily working rest days would surely not arise as those days would be covered.

 

[455driver]

All this talk of annualised staff etc is missing the point though, Northern Rail haven't recruited enough drivers (or guards) and the ones they have got are not fully trained on routes or stock. Do you honestly think that, if they can't train their full time staff up properly, they will fully train these annualised spares up?
You are trying to fix the symptoms and nor the ailment!

 

[Tomnick]

That does, of course, assume that the link is fully staffed. Most depots run with some vacancies, either as a short term thing after someone's left or as a longer term decision to rely on overtime to a certain extent - which is potentially cheaper, as it avoids some of the costs of employing more people. That last point is also relevant to your suggestion - the traction and route knowledge retention (which, if they're to be as flexible and useful as possible, needs to be as extensive as possible) could be a potential nightmare for folk working on a casual basis!

Edit: that's in response to TUC, not 455chap!

 

[muz379]

All this talk of annualised staff etc is missing the point though, Northern Rail haven't recruited enough drivers (or guards) and the ones they have got are not fully trained on routes or stock. Do you honestly think that, if they can't train their full time staff up properly, they will fully train these annualised spares up?
You are trying to fix the symptoms and nor the ailment!

exactly , the only reason northern are so vulnerable to the unions not sanctioning RDW is because they dont have enough drivers trained up to keep to the train plan . If the system is working as designed then the only time a train should be cancelled for no driver is if more people call in sick than are sat spare .However you have rosters incompetently bringing someone in to cover AL when that person signs no routes on the AL mans job . you have drivers sitting spare who sign a fraction of their links work , you have people getting pulled off route learning because there is such a high level of under establishment compounding the problem further .

 

[ComUtoR]

but where does developing a diverse, family-friendly approach to fit staff who don't want a full working week or rigid shift patterns fit into that?

If there really was enough capacity in the system then the issue of staff voluntarily working rest days would surely not arise as those days would be covered.

I'm not here to debate the merits of the working week and staffing levels. It is a huge debate. I fully understand where your coming from and to some extent support your point. The fact remains that the railways is run a certain way. Rightly or wrongly.

As the above posters have pointed out. On paper, the system is designed to work. However; Northern and a high number of employers over various sectors will run it to the bone. Establishment levels are under and there are not enough spare turns to cover realtime flexibility.

Wages are a controllable cost and for as long as roster flexibility and workforce numbers are kept at their lowest the problem will never go away. Introducing more employees can add more problems and not always less. They need training, routes, leave, sickness and other employment rights. They also needs a roster and will ergo also suffer when their duties remain uncovered. Then the cycle begins again.

Bottom line. Create flexibility and make allowance for the role and employee needs. Maintain those levels through a steady recruitment and promotion regimen.

 

[Llama]

There are drivers at Northern depots who qualified as drivers in the final years of the FNW franchise, who still haven't been given all the route and traction training they need.

There is no way at all that a standby squadron of drivers would be trained up on routes and traction in order to cover work. How would those drivers possibly retain competency on their knowledge without a base roster, some booked work in the business links at traincrew depots is hard enough to maintain, and that is with the necessary prescribed instances of the work, and route-revision days!

The scenario being referred to whereby there are standby drivers does exist, but all spare drivers are incorporated into the business links as a ratio (usually about 40 percent if I remember) in order to cover planned and unplanned instances where the booked driver is not available for his/her rostered work. Such instances include sickness, medicals, periodic briefings, training, cover for driver instructors undertaking instructing duties, drivers relieved from duty for whatever reason, jury service, inquest attendance, delays from late-running including Hidden requirements rest, the list goes on, and would apply equally to the 'standby' driver being alluded to above as it does to a booked business link driver. Only by being incorporated into the business link roster can these spare drivers meet the same competence criteria, which are non-negotiable, as the booked driver.