Rail strikes discussion

[WelshBluebird]

Just watched this. Mick Lynch clearly stated that "every single ticket office" was going to close. I was not aware that the closures included those ticket offices at very large railway stations or places like Manchester Airport railway station.

The news reports from the last few days do seem to suggest the plan is to close every single one. Of course the larger ones will probably be the last to close, but it does sound like that is the plan.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Just overheard Merseyrail been offered 7.1% .

Who is the "financial power behind the throne" holding on to the Merseyrail purse strings?

 

[BrokenSam]

Well done to the RMT for riding to the rescue of the Conservative Government. A great distraction from the chaos, lying and incompetence of this Government. In a cost of living crisis, let's all have someone else to blame, the unions! Just before 2 by-elections let's give Labour a big issue and allow the Conservatives to go 'See, this is what it would be like under Labour, especially with them nationalised again'. Well played RMT!

That is certainly....an opinion.

 

[Domeyhead]

For all the (IMO unjustified) hate unions seem to get these days, Mick Lynch has done a fantastic job with the media over the last day or two. Staying calm when Tory politicians and reporters get flustered and raise their voices, calling out lies and misplaced insinuations and generally coming across as a pretty damn reasonable.

I heard a lot of factually inaccurate nonsense on BBC's PM the other day, when (I think) Mr Lynch re-stated the tired anachronistic trope about £3bn of "Profits" leaving the rail industry. As it happens, Roger Ford did a forensic TOC by TOC, year by year analysis of this nonsense 3 months ago and not only is it quite clear that it is untrue, and that most Franchise based TOCs are now investment basket cases, but what I find galling is to talk about fat cat TOC shareholders as justification of wage rises. Most people on here probably know quite well the "cap and collar" clauses in the remaining franchises that guard against unjust profits and (with the exception of South Eastern) - this mechanism has in a small way kept the system as more of less revenue neutral over the last 20 years, but has now plunged into hideous losses. There is no £3 billion. Anyway I don't recall Mr Lynch advocating index linking wages to share price - because if he did we all know what would be happening today RMT wages would be a small fraction of what they were ten years ago. But I accept your point totally WelshBB . The BBC should have done the same grilling on Mick Lynch as it usually does on cabinet ministers, but it didn't. Mick Lynch exploited his platform perfectly. It is the BBC that is at fault, not Mick Lynch.

 

[dk1]

As in guards? Interesting, as they aren't even striking!

If they can get that without striking then I guess the RMT are going to push for more. I'd expected a settlement around 5% myself.

Not sure really. Just overheard but cannot see anything online.

 

[realemil]

The Guardian is reporting that NR is going to start looking into laying off up to 1800 staff.

Network Rail to begin formal process to lay off up to 1,800 staff

RMT union told formal consultations on modernisation plans to begin on 1 July to save over £100m annually

www.theguardian.com

Network Rail has ratcheted up the pressure by giving notice that it will start formal consultations from 1 July on modernisation plans to help save more than £100m a year, incorporating compulsory redundancies if necessary.

In a letter handed to the RMT leadership on Monday night, Network Rail said it “cannot delay any longer” on plans to reform its maintenance regimes, though it would “much prefer to implement them with your agreement and cooperation”.

Further below in the article this is said:

Tim Shoveller, Network Rail’s chief negotiator, said: “The changes will mean dumping outdated working practices and introducing new technology, both of which will lead to a more effective and safer maintenance organisation.

“We expect this will reduce roles by about 1,800, the vast majority of which will be lost through voluntary severance and natural wastage.

 

[sor]

That is certainly....an opinion.

Not to mention that in Tiverton, the actual Tory safe seat, they actually need people to vote Labour because red/yellow vote splitting is the way the Tories take and retain seats. They need "not Tory" voters to avoid voting Lib Dem.

So I doubt their endless "vote Labour for more of this" nonsense is with any thought given to the by elections

 

[quantinghome]

More rubbish. Yes, some pensioners wallow in their affluence, I despair of them as much as anyone, but it is NOT reasonable to generalise. When I started school we had a house with no electricity and no running water, I wonder how people today could cope with that, but we did, and there are many other Pythonesque "We had it tough" things i could add. Holidays were a week in the UK once a year, not jetting off abroad just for stag and hen parties, but no, I would hold back on assuming that ALL youngsters do that, or that they're ALL loud and disruptive on flights, because it is NOT REASONABLE TO GENERALISE.

Many youngsters are lovely, lively, hard working considerate people. In fact quite similar to how a lot of pensioners were in their younger years, just living in different times. As for houses, I didn't expect a right to buy a house on my wages, I did it by spending many years tolerating having lodgers in my own house in order to help to pay the mortgage. I would have liked a job on the railways as it was what I really wanted to do, and it better paid than the job I took too, but there was so much post-Beeching re-deployment going on in the 1970s that it was just too difficult for many to get into the industry.

I repeat, yes some pensioners might be greedy, but a whole lot of people are thinking that rail workers are greedy when compared to care workers (for example). If care workers were to adopt the strike attitude as some have suggested, then what would those rail workers who need urgent hospital care for themselves or family members, have to say about being abandoned to their own devices?

The situations are different, this should be recognised, but it's wrong and unfair to generalise. I have some sympathy with rail workers, but I have to say it's limited when so many workers in other sectors are cutting back on their luxuries and accepting that the Pandemic and Ukraine situations have inevitable adverse consequences which affect us all.

Generalising has its faults, BUT if we're talking about how much state pensions should increase in comparison to incomes of working-age people, you've got to have a look at the overall picture, which is this:



We can see that pensioners as a group have moved from historically having the greatest levels of relative poverty, to being on a par with the general population. We have rich and poor pensioners just as we have rich and poor people of working age. This needs to be reflected in government decision-making, if that's being undertaken on a rational basis.

The other issue is that today's state pensions are funded by today's working age population. If you restrain the pay of the latter it will be increasingly difficult to afford the former.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Apologies if this was discussed already, I had a look and didn't find it. There's an article in the Telegraph with the headline "Archaic rail rules mean it takes nine workers to 'change a plug socket'".

It was always a standing joke in the health service when it took 6 works people to change a light bulb....

 

[Drivermarshy]

Not sure really. Just overheard but cannot see anything online.

It’s a tssa Union deal - here’s a quote from Twitter…

TSSA General Secretary @Manuel_TSSA has welcomed news that members across @Merseyrail have voted to accept a 7.1 per cent pay deal describing it as “a sensible outcome to a reasonable offer”. Full story

 

[Ivor]

Yes, some pensioners wallow in their affluence, I despair of them as much as anyone, but it is NOT reasonable to generalise. When I started school we had a house with no electricity and no running water, I wonder how people today could cope with that, but we did, and there are many other Pythonesque "We had it tough" things i could add. Holidays were a week in the UK once a year, not jetting off abroad just for stag and hen parties, but no, I would hold back on assuming that ALL youngsters do that, or that they're ALL loud and disruptive on flights, because it is NOT REASONABLE TO GENERALISE.

Many youngsters are lovely, lively, hard working considerate people. In fact quite similar to how a lot of pensioners were in their younger years, just living in different times. As for houses, I didn't expect a right to buy a house on my wages, I did it by spending many years tolerating having lodgers in my own house in order to help to pay the mortgage. I would have liked a job on the railways as it was what I really wanted to do, and it better paid than the job I took too, but there was so much post-Beeching re-deployment going on in the 1970s that it was just too difficult for many to get into the industry.

I repeat, yes some pensioners might be greedy, but a whole lot of people are thinking that rail workers are greedy when compared to care workers (for example). If care workers were to adopt the strike attitude as some have suggested, then what would those rail workers who need urgent hospital care for themselves or family members, have to say about being abandoned to their own devices?

The situations are different, this should be recognised, but it's wrong and unfair to generalise. I have some sympathy with rail workers, but I have to say it's limited when so many workers in other sectors are cutting back on their luxuries and accepting that the Pandemic and Ukraine situations have inevitable adverse consequences which affect us all.

A great summing up, I totally agree.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Just overheard Merseyrail been offered 7.1% .

I wonder if that's only for management or supervisory staff...

 

[Shrop]

Generalising has its faults, BUT if we're talking about how much state pensions should increase in comparison to incomes of working-age people, you've got to have a look at the overall picture, which is this:

We can see that pensioners as a group have moved from historically having the greatest levels of relative poverty, to being on a par with the general population. We have rich and poor pensioners just as we have rich and poor people of working age. This needs to be reflected in government decision-making, if that's being undertaken on a rational basis.

The other issue is that today's state pensions are funded by today's working age population. If you restrain the pay of the latter it will be increasingly difficult to afford the former.

Just to clarify, I'm not advocating big pension increases. I wasn't expecting it, I wouldn't have complained without it, and it does seem more than is necessary. It all smacks of the lack of understanding of the real world that was so evident when Sunak announced a reduction in fuel duty. That always was a pathetic attempt to deflect from the release of Sue Gray report, which used up many £millions of taxpayers money that is increasingly scarce, when it was utterly obvious that the saving would completely disappear in comparison with the fuel price rises that were always going to occur around it.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I wonder if that's only for management or supervisory staff...

I did wonder if it was to "buy" the new working practices to allow the 777s to enter service.

 

[GB]

“We can’t roster individuals,” said one industry source. “Let’s imagine you want to change a single socket to a double in your kitchen. “Potentially you’d need an electrician, a tiler and a plumber as your dishwasher waste pipe will need adjusting too.

Alternatively, you could find a competent odd-jobber to do the whole task.

“In Network Rail we can’t roster individuals, only teams and we can’t multi-skill those teams so we’d need to send a team of three electricians, three tilers and three plumbers – nine people to do a job one person could do."

So they have literally made up a fake scenario and extrapolated that across the network?

 

[Lost property]

I have a question please, and would stress, this is NOT being contentious, far from it as I support the industrial action for the reasons it is taking place and even more so when this Gov't is intent on reducing both industrial and human rights...as is the ideology of a populist Gov't now desperate and imploding.

Sunday working.

In my working life, I was a Line Maintenance engineer in aviation and Sunday was just another working day invariably as part of a 4 on / off 12hr shift pattern. The pattern could vary according to the operator as in 2xD / 2xN or, 4D / 4off / 4N but, the shift pay recognised this and was reflected in the overall package. Overtime was almost expected, by management, to keep the headcount down, and, to be frank, to keep engineers happy.

I fully understand the financial benefits of working Sunday therefore and it would seem logical not to surrender these.

But my question is, please, why, with Sunday working and shifts being long established and integral to railway operations, has a premium never been included in any shift pay to reflect this ?

Elsewhere, according to Boris, "modernisation " will result in reduced fares for passengers...really ? !!...plus, I have grave concerns as to the proposal to close ticket offices. Machines / on line booking sounds fine, but, and I've been one of them, at times, over the years, the helpful advice from a ticket office has proved invaluable

 

[Bletchleyite]

So they have literally made up a fake scenario and extrapolated that across the network?

Is the basic premise untrue? Does sound rather Flanders and Swann...

If it is true it wants fixed.

 

[Ivor]

Today's pensioners are the most affluent in history thanks largely to ballooning housing prices.
The grey rinse brigade keep this lot in power. You expect the working young to provide you with increased pension pots whilst happily criticising them for asking for a pay rise. The older generation have no shame.

I meet quite a few “grey rinse brigade” in the railway industry & they are not “affluent” to still be working for pence over minimum wage working in all weathers sweeping up, laying winter precautions & baggage carrying just for the fun of it, including me.

 

[geoffk]

More rubbish. Yes, some pensioners wallow in their affluence, I despair of them as much as anyone, but it is NOT reasonable to generalise. When I started school we had a house with no electricity and no running water, I wonder how people today could cope with that, but we did, and there are many other Pythonesque "We had it tough" things i could add. Holidays were a week in the UK once a year, not jetting off abroad just for stag and hen parties, but no, I would hold back on assuming that ALL youngsters do that, or that they're ALL loud and disruptive on flights, because it is NOT REASONABLE TO GENERALISE.

Many youngsters are lovely, lively, hard working considerate people. In fact quite similar to how a lot of pensioners were in their younger years, just living in different times. As for houses, I didn't expect a right to buy a house on my wages, I did it by spending many years tolerating having lodgers in my own house in order to help to pay the mortgage. I would have liked a job on the railways as it was what I really wanted to do, and it better paid than the job I took too, but there was so much post-Beeching re-deployment going on in the 1970s that it was just too difficult for many to get into the industry.

I repeat, yes some pensioners might be greedy, but a whole lot of people are thinking that rail workers are greedy when compared to care workers (for example). If care workers were to adopt the strike attitude as some have suggested, then what would those rail workers who need urgent hospital care for themselves or family members, have to say about being abandoned to their own devices?

The situations are different, this should be recognised, but it's wrong and unfair to generalise. I have some sympathy with rail workers, but I have to say it's limited when so many workers in other sectors are cutting back on their luxuries and accepting that the Pandemic and Ukraine situations have inevitable adverse consequences which affect us all.

As a pensioner with a local govt. final salary pension, I'm comfortably off (with no mortgage) but certainly not wealthy. I have a small car and have not taken an overseas holiday since 2016. I'm not sure how I would manage just on the state pension but many have nothing else.

Many of the RMT's members are not well paid but I can't help feeling that these strikes are relished by Johnson and his government - a distraction from Partygate and Rwanda, a stick to beat Labour with and maybe even a boost to his chances of re-election. I understand the RMT leadership backed Brexit (but no idea how many members followed this advice) and this has been largely responsible for the food price inflation which we are all suffering. Another point is that railways are not in a good place at the moment, with commuting still well down on pre-Covid levels, and there are sure to be some in the DfT and Treasury who believe that, outside London and the South-east, railways are "nice to have" but not essential.

 

[Edsmith]

The news reports from the last few days do seem to suggest the plan is to close every single one. Of course the larger ones will probably be the last to close, but it does sound like that is the plan.

It would seem inevitable that every ticket office will close eventually but probably not in the immediate future.

 

[gazzaa2]

He has plenty to lose. The government thinks it has a nice clean ideological fight with the railway, but passengers won't be willing to "stay the course" for long. The government will get more of the blame from passengers for as long as this goes on.

Ken Clarke admitted as much on the BBC live news feed yesterday.

It helps that they're taking on a media savvy, verbose union leader in Lynch who knows his brief and is running rings around inept Tory MP's and the MSM.

Johnson was probably banking on a Scargill figure. And he's no Thatcher.

 

[Grumpy Git]

I hope none of the 1,800 to be made redundant are involved in vegetation management? May as well bolt a hedge-cutter to the front of every unit on the CLC line otherwise.

 

[2021_Signaller]

I have a question please, and would stress, this is NOT being contentious, far from it as I support the industrial action for the reasons it is taking place and even more so when this Gov't is intent on reducing both industrial and human rights...as is the ideology of a populist Gov't now desperate and imploding.

Sunday working.

In my working life, I was a Line Maintenance engineer in aviation and Sunday was just another working day invariably as part of a 4 on / off 12hr shift pattern. The pattern could vary according to the operator as in 2xD / 2xN or, 4D / 4off / 4N but, the shift pay recognised this and was reflected in the overall package. Overtime was almost expected, by management, to keep the headcount down, and, to be frank, to keep engineers happy.

I fully understand the financial benefits of working Sunday therefore and it would seem logical not to surrender these.

But my question is, please, why, with Sunday working and shifts being long established and integral to railway operations, has a premium never been included in any shift pay to reflect this ?

Elsewhere, according to Boris, "modernisation " will result in reduced fares for passengers...really ? !!...plus, I have grave concerns as to the proposal to close ticket offices. Machines / on line booking sounds fine, but, and I've been one of them, at times, over the years, the helpful advice from a ticket office has proved invaluable

I don't understand the question, but will explain how Sundays work even though the clever propagandists that are NR and the government know that while they've got you explaining stuff, you can't be attacking their rank hypocrisy. So they put out loads of false nonsense and know the public will ask questions about it. However, I get rostered Saturdays and Sundays the same as every other signaller. The only difference with the Sunday is that I can refuse to work it and then it goes to the next relief signaller to work. There is never a situation where signal boxes close due to signallers being unavailable to work Sundays. Sundays do have an enhanced rate compared to other days. If the argument is they can't run a better service on a Sunday because of this, they are lying. There are no shortage of signallers willing to work Sundays. So any argument that the railways aren't 24/7 7 days a week is false.

As for the modernisation plans reducing fares for passengers which the Prime Liar has been suggesting. I believe fares rose each of the last 2 years and there was no increased staff expenditure at all. They, the senior management, waste the money with crackers plans and it's time they were brought to task for their profligacy. The same as this useless government. It is not the workers on strike that are responsible for spending the money or increases in fares.

 

[Philip]

I am taking part in the strike days this week but, as a ticket office worker, I'm increasingly feeling that I'm doing this in solidarity with the guards and NR staff rather than to benefit my own role, more so since the 'plans' for ticket offices were made public at the weekend and with the government's plan to allow agency staff to cover for striking workers; as far as the booking office goes it will be relatively straightforward to use agency staff to replace the usual clerks who are on strike.

Hopefully it won't come to it but if there are many future strike days after this week, I don't think I'll be taking part in many more of them - and I think a lot of ticket office staff probably feel the same way.

 

[Boski]

Im a dispatcher at a major london terminal, should i be worried?

 

[WelshBluebird]

It would seem inevitable that every ticket office will close eventually but probably not in the immediate future.

The latest reports seem to suggest within 18 months. Now I wouldn't be surprised if this is being leaked out by the government in an attempt to put pressure on railway staff, so it may not be totally accurate, but that is what is being reported at least.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Just overheard Merseyrail been offered 7.1% .

That will be linked to new working practices with the new fleet of 777s.

 

[trainstrainstr]

Some poor person has to read through all that waffle and rubbish before getting to a simple question.

Would be interesting to know the answer though

LNER responded just now, I've had my notifications set up watching with interest, Only TOC so far

Contingency Guard Payment Agreement documents or information. - a Freedom of Information request to London North Eastern Railway Limited

I have seen a document going around social media from Abellio Greater Anglia showing their "Contingency Guard Payment Agreement" for the upcoming strikes next week. The document sets out the full agreement with staff members that are becoming Contingency Guards and the rates of pay that they...

www.whatdotheyknow.com

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

There is never a situation where signal boxes close due to signallers being unavailable to work Sundays. Sundays do have an enhanced rate compared to other days. If the argument is they can't run a better service on a Sunday because of this, they are lying. There are no shortage of signallers willing to work Sundays. So any argument that the railways aren't 24/7 7 days a week is false.

It was Saturdays rather than Sundays, but the Marches line (Newport-Shrewsbury) was closed twice recently because of lack of a signaller at Hereford.

 

[43096]

This. Pensioners in 2022 are some of the most well off in society. Its not like the 70s. Now they all own the homes they bought for a few grand , and many are very comfortable. They stayed safely at home during covid whilst key workers had to go out and put our lives on the line. The younger generation can only dream of home ownership etc, and yet there are many that begrudge working people a small payrise??? Its unbelievable frankly. If Boris can afford 10 percent for pensioners then 5 percent for working people with no strings should be a given.

Playing the “key worker in Covid” is frankly tiresome and tedious. Get over it, that’s history now.