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Rail strikes discussion

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800001

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That's just awful. The idea of only the driver on a train (obviously the case in some tocs) always makes me feel a little uncomfortable, in terms of safety, though I guess most wouldn't notice if they changed to customer reps instead.
Sundays will obviously be a very bad taste in the mouth.
I suppose the third point comes with the first.
The closure of every office is stupidity. I can understand closing them in smaller/unproductive stations, but I know in my area there a regularly queues of people looking to buy from the ticket office over available tvm.
The fourth point is the most idiotic point. If they guaranteed no redundancies, a deal likely could have been pushed across the line by now.
DCO (Driver controlled operation) is not just the driver.
You have another member of staff on board.

Avanti, Crosscountry and LNER use driver controlled operation, in that the driver releases the doors, but the guard closes doors.
 
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Bletchleyite

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Eh? There are plenty of jobs up North.
Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, York. All have well paying jobs if you have the right skills.

If. Whlie things are changing now with remote working etc, London is very much a centre for e.g. the financial industry and IT serving big business. There are far, far fewer opportunities elsewhere.

I am only "Bletchleyite" in the first place for this very reason! Otherwise I might well have been posting as "Liverpudlian" or "Mancunian" depending where I'd ended up. (Not t'wrong side of't'Pennines, obviously! :) )
 

dk1

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DCO (Driver controlled operation) is not just the driver.
You have another member of staff on board.

Avanti, Crosscountry and LNER use driver controlled operation, in that the driver releases the doors, but the guard closes doors.
And here at GA we do both on regional/Intercity. Guards only close when there’s a camera issue or training.
 

Envy123

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I am only "Bletchleyite" in the first place for this very reason! Otherwise I might well have been posting as "Liverpudlian" or "Mancunian" depending where I'd ended up. (Not t'wrong side of't'Pennines, obviously! :) )
If IT wasn't so London-centric, I'd not be in Peterborough, but maybe in Plymouth or Glasgow. ;)
 

pt_mad

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I don't think that's the intention at all in reality (no matter what might be insinuated). Rosters would obviously need to rebuilt to accomodate the 35 (or 40) hours and yes extra staff will be required. This is where the issue arises; the government wants to have their cake and eat it too by getting Sundays inside with no appreciation as to whether that leaves the rosters and diagrams legal, but they haven't graspsed that final details of that.
Have a look at page 81 of this thread where a poster quotes from the offer.

From that, it only appears to make mention to Sundays being on top of basic hours but pointing to there being new agreements which would mean little way of avoiding working the Sundays unless cover is found. No hint at incorporating them into the basic week.
So it could be fair to interpret this being a new basic week at 40 hours, if Mick Lynch is being understood correctly when he said that on BBC question time, plus a Sunday on top.

Just bite the bullet, do it properly and bring Sundays inside as part of a four day week. Three guaranteed rest days a week would do wonders for fatigue.

Just making them committed wouldn’t really change anything, plenty of crew have that already and there are still staff shortages.
And the problem with having them as extra is, if someone can't be classed as sick on a Sunday or as on leave, are sanctions for attendance actually enforced against them should they say they can't get in for Sunday or are ill, like they would be any other day?
 
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HST274

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DCO (Driver controlled operation) is not just the driver.
You have another member of staff on board.

Avanti, Crosscountry and LNER use driver controlled operation, in that the driver releases the doors, but the guard closes doors.
My mistake!
 

GB

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Sundays committed doesn’t automatically mean the standard working week will jump from 35hr to 40hr every week and doesn’t mean you will be working every Sunday. Pretty sure Network Rail are Sundays committed but are still 35hr week because it averages out over x number of weeks.
 

pt_mad

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Sundays committed doesn’t automatically mean the standard working week will jump from 35hr to 40hr every week and doesn’t mean you will be working every Sunday. Pretty sure Network Rail are Sundays committed but are still 35hr week because it averages out over x number of weeks.

We are referring directly about the offer which a poster quoted from on page 81 of this thread which pointed directly to new agreements meaning Sundays would be worked on top of the basic week but must be worked in most circumstances.

The speculation over 40 hours is in reference to Mick Lynch saying on BBC question time last Thursday that's it's proposed the working week increase to 40 hours (he appeared on ITV 'Peston' too). Presumably this would mean from the typical 35 or 37 basic that a lot of workers work to today.
 

Horizon22

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We are referring directly about the offer which a poster quoted from on page 81 of this thread which pointed directly to new agreements meaning Sundays would be worked on top of the basic week but must be worked in most circumstances.

The speculation over 40 hours is in reference to Mick Lynch saying on BBC question time last Thursday that's it's proposed the working week increase to 40 hours. Presumably this would mean from the typical 35 or 37 basic that a lot of workers work to today.

And then that offer someone posted and quoted from on page 81 suggested Sundays in top of basic hours.

The post in question*

Removal of voluntary overtime to robustly resource Sundays and replacement with robust contractual requirement to work flexible rostered shifts on Sundays under a 'Commitment to Work Protocol'

  • Where current conditions provide that Sunday will be paid in addition to the contracted hours where they are not incorporated into the basic working week any agreed enhancements will be payable
  • All future new entrants will be required to work their rostered Sunday shifts
  • Commitment to recruit permanent weekend only staff to support robust Sunday coverage
  • Rostering improvements to allow more efficient utilisation of hours against diagrams with greater flexibility of cover

'Commitment to Work Protocol'

  1. Employees are required to work their rostered Sunday turns when these are outside their basic working week
  2. An Employee rostered to work a Sunday turn may request not to work it in accordance with local practice (depot arrangements). However, if the Sunday turn cannot be covered by another competent available employee, then the employee originally rostered will be required to work the Sunday turn under this Commitment to Work Protocol.
  3. An employee rostered to work a Sunday turn may request to do a mutual exchange of turns (swap)with another competent employee subject to this not impacting on rest intervals between their previous and next turn of duty
  4. An Employee rostered to work a Sunday turn may request not to work it and if there is no cover available at their own depot the company will make every effort to provide cover from another location subject to competency and it not impacting on rest intervals between their previous and next turn of duty
  5. Employees can offer to work an extra Sunday turn to cover those who do not wish to work subject to not impacting on rest intervals between their previous and next turns of duty
  6. Employees who have 2-weeks rostered annual leave are not expected to work a rostered Sunday turn that falls within the middle of their 2-weeks annual leave.
  7. Employees who have their Sunday turn cancelled will be allocated another turn if one is available within the agreed rostering parameters. If one is not available, then they will become spare at the time of their Sunday booked turn and can be allocated onto other reasonable duties.
  8. A cancelled Sunday turn will attract payment unless 48 hours' notice is provided
  9. Where an existing employee has historically not worked their rostered Sunday turns then they could request by giving 12-months' written notice to not work Sunday turns where these are rostered outside of the basic working week. This request will be granted providing extra weekend employees once recruited and trained
*I have placed line breaks and reformatting when I think they are natural as this paragraph was probably copied & pasted with the formatting removed.

This sounds generally to me like the "Committed Sundays" process. I think it will still require rostering to be redrawn in some cases, but perhaps not all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do osters already have a 35hr rolling week that includes Sundays because otherwise you'd run into issues with calcualtions? It's a mess and to resolve it will be complicated indeed and there's some acceptance that additional staff will be needed (even if initially mooted to be rather inefficient "permanent weekend only staff").
 

py_megapixel

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Really, everyone should be demanding a 70% increase in salaries, as that's how much petrol has gone up by in the past 2 years. In fact, more, now that Dishy Rishi has raised National Insurance contributions.
Is petrol the only thing you spend money on?

Someone had to pay for all the 'vaccinations' and face masks and Made-in-China lateral flow tests, and it wasn't going to be Boris and his mates and the 'Government approved' providers of PPE!
Not sure what the point of putting the word vaccination in scare-quotes is, and the country in which the LFTs were manufactured is of no relevance whatsover.
 

the sniper

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DCO (Driver controlled operation) is not just the driver.
You have another member of staff on board.

Avanti, Crosscountry and LNER use driver controlled operation, in that the driver releases the doors, but the guard closes doors.

And here at GA we do both on regional/Intercity. Guards only close when there’s a camera issue or training.

Surely none of which are now DCO, if we take the DfT definition of DCO as being the system of work they implemented on Southern, which is essentially DOO, where the OBS may or may not be provided... You could throw Scotrail into the mix too on that definition.

Three different methods of work with very different rule book and service implications can't all be DCO. To me it's a dangerously ambiguous term, in multiple senses, best avoided.
 

Philip

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The problem with moving up north is the lack of jobs...

London and the South East is very dense with companies and offices. This means there are a lot of very well paid skilled jobs.

The north has much less of this, relying on blue collared jobs, and low skilled jobs like retail. That is why it is so cheap, there's no demand to live there because there are no jobs.

The south is so expensive because of all the jobs

What about Birmingham?

The post in question*


*I have placed line breaks and reformatting when I think they are natural as this paragraph was probably copied & pasted with the formatting removed.

This sounds generally to me like the "Committed Sundays" process. I think it will still require rostering to be redrawn in some cases, but perhaps not all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but do osters already have a 35hr rolling week that includes Sundays because otherwise you'd run into issues with calcualtions? It's a mess and to resolve it will be complicated indeed and there's some acceptance that additional staff will be needed (even if initially mooted to be rather inefficient "permanent weekend only staff").

Would AL or a day in lieiu have to be used if someone decided not to work a committed Sunday (assuming it was covered by someone else)?
 

Horizon22

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What about Birmingham?



Would AL or a day in lieiu have to be used if someone decided not to work a committed Sunday (assuming it was covered by someone else)?

Probably yes or a mutual swap, which would be more likely. Any time I wanted a Sunday off in my previous role (which was rare) I had committed Sundays, I was able to find a swap in good time. I'm sure for train crew this will be even easier with a wider group to pick from. It might be an issue of course if certain crew were trying to take every Sunday off. Engineering works might reduce diagrams anyway although the above process does mean this wouldn't neccessarily give you an option to book it off, just you'd be "Spare" instead. In practice, I think TOCs might offer it to people who'd want it off (without pay though) if it would result in loads of crew spare, above an expected contingency for the day.

Personally I've never understood the massive concern from people who already have to wake up at 3am or finish at gone midnight and already work all sorts of hours. As I have previously mentioned it would probably seriously reduce the "Late Saturday, Early Monday" effect of which Sunday is barely a RD anyway.
 

Mintona

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And the problem with having them as extra is, if someone can't be classed as sick on a Sunday or as on leave, are sanctions for attendance actually enforced against them should they say they can't get in for Sunday or are ill, like they would be any other day?

No, they can’t be because it is overtime and by its very definition overtime can’t be compulsory. So no sanctions.
 

Meole

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Is the 9% that PWC are awarding their mainly WFH staff a relevant comparison ? They do of course make a profit unlike the railway but do derive a large proportion of their business from public sector contracts.
 

Horizon22

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No, they can’t be because it is overtime and by its very definition overtime can’t be compulsory. So no sanctions.

Which is, you have to admit, a bit of a loophole for attendance management.
 

Cowley

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Well everyone. We think that probably everyone has had their say on this and now that the thread is wondering around all over the place it’s time to call it a day until there’s any news on further strike action.

(I mean it has mostly been in the spirit of what it was set up to do…)

Thanks everyone. :)
 
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