RMT Extends Strike Action on Network Rail to Dec 24-27

[Bald Rick]

I have once or twice had my ticket checked on a Thameslink train but only on a small percentage of journeys. Unless tickets and railcards are checked on every journey and passengers know their ticket is certain to be checked there could be a potential risk to revenue especially on journeys covering much longer distances and therefore with much higher fares and than Thameslink and other current driver only operated services.

That potential risk to revenue is actually rather small. Especially with £100 penalty fares.

At what point can they do that?

NR can do it now (Implement the proposed change in maintenance)

State Pension and benefits are getting 10% and they're not even paying the taxes that contribute to those Government bills.

Plenty of people pay tax on their state pensions and benefits.

 

[brad465]

Oh boy not this line again. Remember pensioners & people on benefits do still pay taxes, why does this need to be said again? And the former group have spent most of their working lives paying taxes for all the infrastructure we have today, just saying like....

Oh I think they should, pensioners did have to sacrifice the triple lock last year as well. The double standards is what I oppose most of all.

 

[yorksrob]

Society feels pretty crap at the minute. I'm pulled along with other people's motivations that don't match mine, I feel rushed off my feet in the world of social media and instantaneous reactions, over stimulated and I'd like to step back 20 years. I sleep badly and seem to be worrying all the time.

I'm strongly aware at the minute that I only get to live for so many years and I question whether a lot of our current advancements are really making things better. The world seems to remain a rather bitter and angry place and extreme views just get more so.

In the mean time I'll just keep doing my best, I suppose. I manage to fill my days as a train guard so I don't suppose my entire day at work is totally worthless, the customers at least seem to appreciate me strikes or not, I had another nice letter the other day and a lovely lady took the time to visit both rear and then very unusually front the cab of my train the other day to thank both me and the driver for a pleasant trip and getting her there safely. Small positives at the minute!

The problem is that all of these technical advancements and efficiencies rarely seem to lead to improvements in general living conditions anymore. Consider how much labour saving and automation there has been over the past fifty years, yet does this provide people with more free time ? Of course not.They all seem to contribute to increased wealth for business owners.

There might be some hope if the Western world moves towards a four day week with the same pay on the back of the recent experiment, however too many people running the economy are Musk type half-wits who are intent on getting their pound of flesh through unpaid overtime etc.

 

[JonathanH]

Plenty of people pay tax on their state pensions and benefits.

Arguably they don't because the total state pension is less than the personal allowance.

Therefore, if the state pension is seen as base income, it is their other pensions which are taxed, unless their overall income is over £100,000 (I guess actually over about £105,000 in practice), at which point the loss of the personal allowance starts to make an inroad into the basic state pension.

 

[Towers]

That potential risk to revenue is actually rather small. Especially with £100 penalty fares.

I suspect far fewer people will be stumping up for £100 Penalty Fares than do/did for the £20 variant. The bonus of setting it at 20 quid is it's a small enough amount that people will, in the main, just pay it and move on. £100 is a large amount, particularly for the 'honest mistake' scenario that it is supposed to be applicable to, and I imagine the industry is going to end up spending rather a lot of money chasing people for it.

Anyway, enough on that!

 

[baz962]

The question I really want to know is, are RMT against DOO because of safety fears, and I mean genuine safety fears - not just them alleging that that's the reason, or because they fear it will cause redundancies? That's a genuine question I have.

Don't know about the RMT but as a driver I'm against it as it is potentially unsafe.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Dec 2022 ==

Society feels pretty crap at the minute. I'm pulled along with other people's motivations that don't match mine, I feel rushed off my feet in the world of social media and instantaneous reactions, over stimulated and I'd like to step back 20 years. I sleep badly and seem to be worrying all the time.

I'm strongly aware at the minute that I only get to live for so many years and I question whether a lot of our current advancements are really making things better. The world seems to remain a rather bitter and angry place and extreme views just get more so.

In the mean time I'll just keep doing my best, I suppose. I manage to fill my days as a train guard so I don't suppose my entire day at work is totally worthless, the customers at least seem to appreciate me strikes or not, I had another nice letter the other day and a lovely lady took the time to visit both rear and then very unusually front the cab of my train the other day to thank both me and the driver for a pleasant trip and getting her there safely. Small positives at the minute!

I feel for you. Next time I'm up your way and we have time, I will get you a coffee and we can chat.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

The question I really want to know is, are RMT against DOO because of safety fears, and I mean genuine safety fears - not just them alleging that that's the reason, or because they fear it will cause redundancies? That's a genuine question I have.

When questioned on the safety aspect of DOO in a BBC interview, Mick Lynch said that passengers "feel safer" with another member of staff on board.
He didn't criticise the technical railway safety aspects of DOO, which RSSB has declared "safe".
A number of London commuter TOCs have operated DOO for nearly 40 years since BR introduced it out of St Pancras on class 317s.

 

[Kite159]

.

When questioned on the safety aspect of DOO in a BBC interview, Mick Lynch said that passengers "feel safer" with another member of staff on board.
He didn't criticise the technical railway safety aspects of DOO, which RSSB has declared "safe".
A number of London commuter TOCs have operated DOO for nearly 40 years since BR introduced it out of St Pancras on class 317s.

And some staff don't make it easy when they hide away in the back/middle cab, only popping out to do the doors at stations. Hiding away from that group messing around (be it feral kids or overly drunken passengers trying to be the big dog).

Ie London Northwestern.

Having a guard didn't stop that female getting raped in the toilet of a South Eastern service to Hastings.

 

[Towers]

.

And some staff don't make it easy when they hide away in the back/middle cab, only popping out to do the doors at stations. Hiding away from that group messing around (be it feral kids or overly drunken passengers trying to be the big dog).

Ie London Northwestern.

Having a guard didn't stop that female getting raped in the toilet of a South Eastern service to Hastings.

Guards, quite obviously, are not going to be everywhere all the time. They are also - along with most other customer facing staff in most industries these days - under very clear instruction not to go into hand to hand combat with miscreants; they are not the police. However, that doesn't mean that they're not monitoring the situation and making appropriate arrangements out of sight, which is something that happens frequently.

 

[Mag_seven]

The subject of DOO has been done to death elsewhere on the forum and is off topic anyway for this thread which is about the Network Rail offer to the RMT.

As this offer is now out to an electronic ballot we will bring this thread to a close.

Once the ballot result is known we will probably open a new thread.