There is a massive difference between a private sector business where employees are pulling well beyond their weight and are negotiating for their fair share of the success, and the situation the rail industry currently finds itself in - making enormous losses but temporarily propped up by the taxpayer.
Now is just about the worst time imaginable for any rail union to be demanding more pay. They should be focusing on protecting jobs and conditions wherever possible, not making the industry even more unsustainable than it already is.
To be clear I don’t disagree with your second paragraph but what’s happening here is (at least on the face of it) rather more nuanced than stereotype of “greedy rail-staff demanding extra pay”.
As for the first paragraph, I’m not sure that’s a good comparison. We all know the railway doesn’t really operate as a commercial business and is more akin to an essential service provided by the public sector (albeit provided by a hotch potch of private and public sector organisations). As such it is *always* propped up by the tax payer! That’s just more noticeable than usual at the moment because subsidy has been increased to offset the drop in fare revenue.
Passenger numbers will recover and indeed the railway will help to drive the wider economic recovery. The whole point of the railway being provided at all is that it generates economic benefits over and above what it costs to run. Focussing on the fact the railway itself is operating at a loss rather misses this point.
The “there’s no money” argument also looks rather hollow when there apparently is enough money to nationalise the economy, pay people full time salaries to sit at home, to give Scottish NHS workers a 4% pay rise etc.
I wouldn’t say it’s expected.
However, I really care about getting people to their places of work, to their choice of leisure destination etc, and will work the hours I need to to give them the best chance of them having a good journey. And I know that most of my ‘management’ colleagues are similarly inclined.
I would think (hope!) that view is universal across most railway employees whether front line or “back office”. In my experience it generally is.
As a general point (not limited to the railway) workers in the U.K. work some of the longest hours in Europe. People in other European countries tend to work fewer hours and have a much better work life balance. People should also consider who it is that benefits from doing those hours of unpaid overtime.
It’s also notable that long hours spent at work don’t imply high levels of productivity, often quite the opposite. In my experience of office based employment long hours are generally a product of poor time management skills and presenteeism.
I've been known to step up to guard trains to and from my home station (or beyond!) too during disruption. I once arrived back at my depot on a 10 hour shift to find the world had gone to pot and 3 Saturday night full and standing piss head expresses had no guard and/or driver and there were hundreds of people milling around waiting for buses - I rang Control and offered to jump on the back of a unit if they found me a driver to deal with a 3rd of the problem and agreed to me working over our normal maximum hours if they made sure I got home and that was what we did - the train was so packed I could hardly squeeze in the door and the empty stock working afterwards dropped me off at a station a short walk from home.
Indeed. And of course there are good reasons why operational staff aren’t required to do overtime as a matter of course (and why any we elect to do is subject to the usual requirements to be fit for work, not fatigued etc.). Our “four day week” is the same number of hours as a five day “9-5”, and at extreme start and finish times.
Passenger numbers may be low for now but by and large railway workers have still been going to work throughout the pandemic in order to get those whose do need to travel from A to B. Sadly we get precious little gratitude or respect for that, in contrast to other public sector “heros”.
I know its a strange arrangement, and a bit of a grey area, but as previously mentioned, the company won't touch staff who take constantly avoid working their booked Sundays throufh calling in sick etc with a bargepole - and that's precisely because of the ambiguity of the system. Its a can of worms they really don't want to open, because the system of mandatory overtime that booked Sundays is would, I'd imagine, be legally dubious in a court.
As far as I’m aware there are three basic systems: Sundays inside the working week, Sundays outside the week, and committed Sundays.
Committed Sundays (which might attract a premium overtime rate if worked) means you are contractually required to work a certain number of Sundays per year, subject to booking annual leave or finding cover. Calling in sick to avoid working them would usually be treated as part of the normal attendance policy, with all that that implies.
What has been described above is clearly unsatisfactory for all parties. It sounds like committed Sundays arrangement which management is failing to enforce, and perhaps reflects a failure of both management (and union) to properly agree the position.
