-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Northern strike action suspended
- Thread starter scrapy
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
furnessvale
Established Member
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2015
- Messages
- 4,582
Sad to say, but railwaymen (perhaps not all) live in a bubble at work compared to conditions for most of the rest of the population. For example my son is a dustbin man (refuse operative). His conditions include a term similar to "and any other work as reasonably applied by management".
Could you therefore, please tell your Son, that I would like my bin collected on the right day and on a bank holiday. I would also like my bin emptied even when the lid isn't quite completely closed.
furnessvale
Established Member
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2015
- Messages
- 4,582
Ha Ha! Collection on the wrong day is caused by equipment failure (cancelled train), he works bank holidays, FLAT TIME, and open lids is a H & S issue. Good try!
Esker-pades
Established Member
Yesterday (Feb 9th), the digital departure boards at Alnmouth were still telling people that services would be effected by Northern strike action.
Not really a 'good try' is it. Its a perfect example of who all industries work within a set of terms and conditions and health and safety requirements. I also work bank holiday FLAT TIME and also refuse to do staff because of 'Health and safety issue'
My 'wrong day' collections are caused by multiple issues. One of which is because they don't work bank holiday round here so every day gets bumped because of it.
Personally it doesn't bother me because I understand that they work within their working conditions. What I don't say is that the Binmen are living in a bubble because the rest of the world works 24hrs and 7 days a week and a bin lid 1 inch up is a health and safety issue gone mad and that didn't happen before it all went private and they should work Sundays to pick up the slack etc etc.
I've worked Retail, Multi-Drop, Kitchens and some minor jobs inbetween. I'm now working on the Railway. Nothing has been more prescriptive as the Railway but everywhere I have been restricted by my Terms and Conditions.
Those terms and conditions are usually hours and benefits based, not tight job descriptions with the employee being able to refuse productivity improvements or demand more money for them
I never understand these comparisons. Why is it always a race to the bottom rather than other industries should be similar.
“NHS nurses are underpaid, railway workers should be underpaid”
“Office clerks don’t get to negotiate terms and conditions, railway workers should not be able to”
Why is it okay that your son works bank holidays “FLAT TIME”. The fact you emphasised it shows that you know perhaps it’s not okay but hey he just puts up and gets on with it and so does his colleagues so in this case so should every other industry.
It’s a bit boring now
furnessvale
Established Member
- Joined
- 14 Jul 2015
- Messages
- 4,582
The standard reply. I presume EVERYBODY using that reply will be prepared to pay the extra income tax. council tax and prices in the shops to cover the cost of everybody racing to the top?
When I was a Retail Manager my company needed to increase productivity and change the employee terms and conditions. It was them who dictated what hours they could work and we had to pay out compensation and increase wages when we did so. When I was multi-drop there was a load of stuff that we refused on a regular basis. There was a huge divide between agency workers and the employees and we flat out refused anything extra, including many who refused to work weekends. Remember those days where you couldn't get deliveries on a weekend or late night ? I never worked past 1700.
It’s not a race to the bottom. Us office clerks understand that if we don’t like our jobs we are free to go elsewhere and prove we are worth more money by getting someone else to pay us more. If this keeps happening the company get left with the incompetent slackers and they fail.
We also don’t suffer flat rate nationally negotiated pay rises - we can work hard and earn bigger pay rises without the demotivating sight of seeing slackers get exactly the same benefit and drag us down.
Seeing as that's the model for Scandinavian countries, which tend to have the best living standards and highest happiness ratings in the world. Then yes, Go for it. Rather than the US style race to the bottom which our elite salivate over.
I'm a Band 2 NHS office admin worker. I know my place. I know I'm free to look for other jobs, and that I'm exceptionally lucky to have a job. This idea that we should always be agitating for action, always at odds with management, it's just not how we work. Maybe it's a railway thing. It doesn't always pay to be always up against things, I've found.
You’ll probably find some Royal, private and government chauffeurs around the world on similar or even higher salaries than train drivers , so by your analogy with cross country all taxi drivers should aspire to similar wages with no increase in productivity
You tell me what is so different about an XC and a Northern driver? Go on...
You are (in the correct sense of the expression) begging the question.
How is (potentially) removing the second member of staff an improvement to the industry?
But that's not how the railway usually operates either. I worked in the industry for 20 years. Never went on strike; never worked to rule. Had one acrimonious dispute in 20 years (when they moved our place of work 50 miles away).
Exactly
Haven't ever been on strike either. Also done a medium stint on the railway, get on mostly well withy managers and also had one single work to rule for a very short period. Trouble is, that doesn't suit the agenda of people to portray unions as trouble causing rabble rousers. Sure, you get the likes of Tilley and Cash say things that make you since, but ultimately these organisation are ran by us, regular people with a wide viewpoint. I know loads of colleagues in ASLEF who are openly Tory but value the whole point of a union, even if they disagree with socialism. So to label everyone as a potential Trot, should be given the contempt it deserves.
I don't doubt that at all, but it does take a glance at recent threads on here to get that impression. Very quickly after suggesting another way of doing things, RMT supporters would be hastily dismissing every point made as part of a wide anti-DfT anti-Tory policy.
I have the impression that the threat of industrial action is always more likely to be hanging over the railway industry than any other. That's not a criticism *per se*. It's an observation fed from posts on here and elsewhere that suggests that the railways are always wary of making decisions in a way almost absent elsewhere.
Isn’t that mainly due to the threat of strikes though?
Why aren’t tube trains all automatic despite the technology being decades old, why isn’t SWR metro DOO? Because of the threat of industrial action holding back progress.
Robertj21a
On Moderation
- Joined
- 22 Sep 2013
- Messages
- 7,518
I think some of the issues on the railways, and involving the RMT in particular, may be partly down to the understandable need (for safety reasons) of doing absolutely everything by the rule book. I'm not trying to suggest that the adherence to the rule books at all times is wrong, clearly it's there for a reason and represents knowledge accumulated over decades, but it must breed a culture of only accepting whatever the rule book says.
Times change, laws change, systems change, attitudes change - but it always seems that the RMT doesn't/won't change. That's why they get labelled as the dinosaur union.
I doubt that anything will change all the time that the current RMT leaders are in control - and, of course, it seems that the majority of their members support them anyway. It would be nice to think that a forward-thinking, professional, and co-operative, RMT might eventually surface, but I won't be holding my breath.
Times change, laws change, systems change, attitudes change - but it always seems that the RMT doesn't/won't change. That's why they get labelled as the dinosaur union.
I doubt that anything will change all the time that the current RMT leaders are in control - and, of course, it seems that the majority of their members support them anyway. It would be nice to think that a forward-thinking, professional, and co-operative, RMT might eventually surface, but I won't be holding my breath.
That won’t happen whilst their current blackmailing methods keep working for the members. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas
So the only way it will happen is by the government “breaking” them (the RMT losing a strike at great cost to the members) or removing the need for their members jobs.
Once again such bitterness on display because the RMT members didn't roll over and die. Perhaps if others didn't as well there would be less zero hour contracts, more sick pay instead of a fear of being off sick, more pay rises when your fuel bills go through the roof.
The problem with the UK in general is laid bare on these pages. So busy sucking up scraps and blaming everyone else for not doing the same.
The problem with the UK in general is laid bare on these pages. So busy sucking up scraps and blaming everyone else for not doing the same.
The industry always going to have to be allowed to stay united if it ultimately wanted to win the DCO argument after Southern was sorted, but the rail unions successful lobbying of influential politicians like Andy Burnham, Steve Rotherham and those controlling the Scottish and Welsh administrations ensured that couldn’t happen
Last edited:
Which "industry"? Until the DfT and in particular Peter Wilkinson decided to pick a fight there was no appetite that I could see within the railway for this unnecessary fight at all.
Exactly Gems. The minute the word 'breaking' gets used in a union context. There's no longer any point in arguing. That's just a way of showing anger that you haven't got your own way. Surprising how many right wing types use this style of language straight out of the daily mail playbook and then call us on the left dinosaurs and various other insults. The key is the word 'compromise'. Driver doing doors, and having a guard just shut them is a perfectly reasonable compromise. You need a presence in the train. One person cannot do it all on their own. I know I'm going to get LU threw at me, but it has an entirely different way of working, for me, the mainline services on BR should entirely be run in this way, South Eastern, GWR, ScotRail Strathclyde services, the lot. My main issue is that before too long, we are going to see a mass unplanned evac on a 3rd rail service that sees someone get zapped or ran over by a train. A guard can stop that if the info can be got out quick enough, a DOO driver can very easily be info overloaded in this point and if one impatient person gets up and walks, you'll see plenty follow them. .
bramling
Veteran Member
The reason all of LU isn’t automatic is because it can only really happen when the need to renew rolling stock and signalling coincides, or the money and political will is there to arrange otherwise. It’s also the case that, even 50 years since the first incarnation of ATO, the technology is far from perfect with many issues and problems to resolve to get it performing well.
It’s not just a case of installing “the technology” and flicking a switch to bring it into use on the day.
it was widely recognised operational changes and reforms were long overdue The DFT and Peter Wilkinson were tasked with implementing the McNulty report, it wasn’t just a matter of recruiting an alternative boss that could implement change without any opposition from the hardline rail unions , that was always an impossible task
Last edited:
I really don’t think anyone on the RMT side can complain about antagonistic language considering the RMTs press releases!
It isn’t really compromise if one side don’t want something at all. The Merseyrail deal is preposterous pandering to union blackmail.
I don’t want my car washed. I am not going to compromise and pay someone to only wash the windows.
The only ‘compromise’ is non route specific OBS which gives passengers what they want.
It isn’t really compromise if one side don’t want something at all. The Merseyrail deal is preposterous pandering to union blackmail.
I don’t want my car washed. I am not going to compromise and pay someone to only wash the windows.
The only ‘compromise’ is non route specific OBS which gives passengers what they want.
Well when you call the people you need to change 'muppets' who need to get out of HIS industry . Then you are really onto a loser aren't you.
Again, you're begging the question.
In what way is removing safety-trained staff from trains "progress"?
- Status