Why are Northern allowed to cancel Sunday Services seemingly at will?

[LeylandLen]

Two points from me ..
1 This thread seems to do with Northern this, the north west side of England. Does the east side , Yorkshire and north east suffer from the same problems?

2 Now the football season is back (I here groans from some of you !) Our big Premier League teams in the north west do sometimes play on Sundays.
I can forsee problems when they do so with last minute train cancellations on Northern..
And of course the annual problem of Sunday shopping in the weeks upto Xmas !!!!

 

[muz379]

1 This thread seems to do with Northern this, the north west side of England. Does the east side , Yorkshire and north east suffer from the same problems?

Sunday agreements for Drivers east and west (and ex tpe) are different . Eastern drivers (including NE) have Sundays inside the working week .

 

[philthetube]

Anyhow , one other big reason why the imposition of contracts idea is just plain dumb is as follows . The franchise has a lot of training requirements particularly for drivers, with increases in complements of drivers to meet new service frequencies , new traction , and there is still existing legacy route and traction knowledge deficits to be addressed . A work to rule because you have just imposed a set of detrimental changes on the grade could really put paid to any service improvements or reliable train service for some time to come . And drivers wouldn't even lose a penny doing it . Of course you might also get a group of brave drivers , and lets face it all it would take is one larger depot or a few smaller ones who do not sign the new contracts and then you have no train service over a large part of the franchise area . How long would that be allowed to continue do you reckon ? I dont think it prudent to bring options to the table which could result in seriously intolerable side effects , because should those effects be realised the company would have to back down and then look like fools both in the eyes of staff and the public .

Eventually someone is going to decide that this situation is no longer tolerable and have the bottle to take on the unions, The side effects will be bad for a while but a decision will be made that the results are worth it.

 

[muz379]

Eventually someone is going to decide that this situation is no longer tolerable and have the bottle to take on the unions, The side effects will be bad for a while but a decision will be made that the results are worth it.

I dont think you quite understand quite how bad things could get clearly . And I would be interested to know what your concept of "a while is". I would bet that no TOC would offer drivers a take it or leave it new contract imposition with their drivers over Sunday working . Because as I said if a group of brave drivers in a larger depot or group of smaller depots decided to take the TOC on over it and held their nerve , the TOC would be forced to back down . Otherwise face the prospect of no meaningful train service over a large area for at least a year to 18 months maybe longer . Are you really suggesting that this would be tolerated ?

There is no need to take on the unions over Sunday working , Aslef have it in their charter as a committent , and the RMT position is that there should be no reliance on overtime as there should be full employment and wages should be high enough that there no need for it(although the disruption is not being caused by shortages of guards as the additional rate for guards generally works to incentivise guards to come in ) . If the Toc brought sensible and workable proposals to the table with adequate compensation then both Unions would accept Sunday working .This Tory mantra of taking on unions would cause more harm than good even in the long run when morale was destroyed . As I also said a work to rule could really cause massive issues with the further introduction of new stock and effectively halt service improvements . All bad news for the companies reputation

The problem with the latest attempt to do that for drivers was firstly that the proposal also included a bunch of other terms and condition changes , and when considered as a whole the compensation on offer was not suitable and secondly the proposal was not workable without a continued reliance on overtime .

 

[geoffk]

By bring in for I mean book a sunday for . With the topic being bringing them inside the working week for the west drivers at Northern I was looking at it from the POV of the company trying to do that . So if they bring the current booked Sundays inside the working week but keep the number of rest days and length of working week at the same current levels (It is expected that these would increase in line with new services) you now have to give every driver booked to work a Sunday another day off . In order to ensure that you have a feasible train plan these new days off have to be balanced to ensure the same resources every other day .

I suppose radically you could just put the sundays on top of the existing contracted days and extend the working week , but then you will find issues retaining drivers when every driver with any experience applies for jobs at other TOC's . And will almost certainly have a massive dispute with ASLEF if you imposed a contract of that type .

Serco-Abellio had 12 years to sort this problem out but presumably filed it in the "too difficult" tray. On the other hand I don't remember this level of cancellations every Sunday. If train drivers don't want to work on a Sunday them I'm sorry they are in the wrong job. On many lines the Sunday service on offer lags well behind the level of economic activity on a Sunday.

 

[SteveM70]

I could quite imagine normalising staff T&Cs being stipulated in the requirements for the next franchise (if the franchising model hasn’t changed beyond all recognition by then). Wouldn’t be at all like the government to pick a fight / try and improve things for passengers (delete as applicable) and let the TOC do the dirty work

 

[muz379]

Serco-Abellio had 12 years to sort this problem out but presumably filed it in the "too difficult" tray. On the other hand I don't remember this level of cancellations every Sunday.

The last franchise did attempt harmonisation early on and it was rejected , the idea was then dropped . Presumably after some discussion with the DFT . This franchise seems to be intending to press ahead with harmonisation of some sort presumably with the DFT's backing AIUI harmonisation is a committed franchise obligation .

The last franchise also had a smaller service requirement on a Sunday . This franchise brings in a massive increase in Sunday services ,e also has a large number of other changes which take up crew resources on training in the week . And of course for some parts of the last franchise there was no RDW agreement for drivers so additional Sundays would suddenly have grown in popularity .

If train drivers don't want to work on a Sunday them I'm sorry they are in the wrong job. On many lines the Sunday service on offer lags well behind the level of economic activity on a Sunday.

We see these empty platitudes about drivers being in the wrong job all the time just because they wish to retain some term or condition they signed up for when they took the job . I am sorry but saying to all the drivers who would be effected by these changes that they are in the wrong job wont solve this . A workable and sensible solution with sufficient additional remuneration will . Ive not once argued we should not have Sundays inside the working week , nor have I argued that we should not do it because drivers dont want to work Sundays I am just pointing out that in order to bring them in the week you need a workable solution and to recognise that you are wanting a grade to give up terms and conditions and they would not do that for free . I know plenty who dont want to work Saturdays either but they do because its part of the job they signed up for . But what that unpopularity of weekend working will always mean is that willingness of people to volunteer to come in and work extra Saturdays or Sundays will always be lower than the numbers volunteering for a rest day in the week . And something workable has to be done to compensate for that whilst protecting the weekday train service .

Trying to do it on the cheap , and bundling a load of terms and condition changes with Sunday working wont cut it .

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Of course the real "blame" for this situation lies with the franchising model imposed on the railway by the promoters of privatisation. The necessary balkanisation was always going to lead to some TOCs being more financially successful than others and this eventually fed its way into rates of pay. Thus was created an internal market for drivers within the industry with the stronger TOCs "poaching" from the weaker ones. Over time all drivers rates have increased in real terms of course but there remain significant gaps between pay at different TOCs. This makes it harder for the weaker TOCs, like Northern, to bring in potentially unpopular changes to drivers' Ts & Cs as the resulting depressed morale simply leads to yet more drivers seeking to jump ship to another TOC at the earliest opportunity leaving the weaker TOC with the repeated costs of training new recruits off the street. Sadly as long as we continue to insist on the railway being subject to such free market forces the problem will persist unless government decides to intervene more directly. And the likely effects of this have already been noted by previous posters.

I often make the point on here that railways are inherently expensive operations best suited to high volume movements. Perhaps the biggest problem is the political view that less well used railways should be capable of being operated at lower cost: in reality this often isn't possible but at the same time there is zero appetite for scaling back the network. Ultimately the railway costs what it costs so in Northern's case the addition of Sunday to the contracted working week will need an appropriate increase in pay to make it happen. When all concerned accept this to be the case we will see the problem resolved but I fear such enlightenment is still some way off.

 

[muz379]

Ultimately the railway costs what it costs so in Northern's case the addition of Sunday to the contracted working week will need an appropriate increase in pay to make it happen

Not just that but also a relative increase in complement of drivers as you now have a whole new day of the week that needs covering with booked drivers not relying on overtime .

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Not just that but also a relative increase in complement of drivers as you now have a whole new day of the week that needs covering with booked drivers not relying on overtime .

Very true. I suppose I was taking that point for granted but maybe there are some for whom it needs spelling out. Given the number of commitments to Sunday service improvements in the current franchise Northern should really be looking at quite a heavy recruitment drive for traincrew.

 

[Eccles1983]

Very true. I suppose I was taking that point for granted but maybe there are some for whom it needs spelling out. Given the number of commitments to Sunday service improvements in the current franchise Northern should really be looking at quite a heavy recruitment drive for traincrew.

They have recruited more drivers than virtually any company. They have recruited solidly for over 3-4 years. Around 3-400 extra drivers.

Problem is that they are losing nearly as many due to lower wages, poor working conditions and shoddy senior management.

The saving grace is the t&C's. Unless a large pay settlement is forth coming then get used to Sundays being poor. If imposed without decent rises then you can write off a good chunk of them drivers as they will walk into other ToC's.

 

[DC2001]

Very true. I suppose I was taking that point for granted but maybe there are some for whom it needs spelling out. Given the number of commitments to Sunday service improvements in the current franchise Northern should really be looking at quite a heavy recruitment drive for traincrew.

Maybe some staff just contracted to work Sunday's (with the option to do extra days in the week if insufficient staff are available)

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Maybe some staff just contracted to work Sunday's (with the option to do extra days in the week if insufficient staff are available)

That might seem an attractive idea but any staff recruited on such a basis would still need to be trained to the same standard as everyone else. Throw in the need to undertake route-learning and it quickly becomes a highly expensive way of gaining not very much. The idea of part-time working on the railway so often falls down for this reason and is really only likely to be worthwhile if offered to existing staff wishing to continue working beyond their allotted retirement date. Even if this was to be tried I doubt there would be many takers.

 

[DC2001]

That might seem an attractive idea but any staff recruited on such a basis would still need to be trained to the same standard as everyone else. Throw in the need to undertake route-learning and it quickly becomes a highly expensive way of gaining not very much. The idea of part-time working on the railway so often falls down for this reason and is really only likely to be worthwhile if offered to existing staff wishing to continue working beyond their allotted retirement date. Even if this was to be tried I doubt there would be many takers.

Maybe it could work as a way to keep staff who wish to retire/wind-down towards retirement then and obviously ensure than new staff are trained to replace those who move onto such scheme.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

Maybe it could work as a way to keep staff who wish to retire/wind-down towards retirement then and obviously ensure than new staff are trained to replace those who move onto such scheme.

It has certainly been mentioned but in practice there seems to be little enthusiasm for it amongst those staff members who might appear to be suitable. Little point in management pursuing it if it doesn't have a realistic chance of success. Sad but true.

 

[DC2001]

It has certainly been mentioned but in practice there seems to be little enthusiasm for it amongst those staff members who might appear to be suitable. Little point in management pursuing it if it doesn't have a realistic chance of success. Sad but true.

Maybe working Sunday's needs to have more benefits - increase in Sunday pay or extra annual leave for a certain number of Sundays.

 

[Mathew S]

I dont think it prudent to bring options to the table which could result in seriously intolerable side effects , because should those effects be realised the company would have to back down and then look like fools both in the eyes of staff and the public .

The blunt answer is that I disagree, I think we're at the point now where the only remaining option is to call the unions bluff and go for radical, wholesale change. The lovely thing about strikes is that you don't have to pay people, so no problem hiring in - or even buying in, for a prolonged dispute - fleets of buses to replace train services. I say this as someone who is actively involved in my own trade union, and who has been a rep in the past; the railway is stuck in 1970s industrial relations and Aslef and the RMT are, in my view, part of the problem. The railways aren't public services anymore, they're commercial companies, and the sooner the unions realise that they too need to change with the times the better it will be for the travelling public.

I don't minimise the pain that will be experienced by some railway staff who might earn less, or have to work longer hours, under poorer conditions, but that's the world we live in and which, peculiarly perhaps, we call progress.

 

[Llama]

Northern rely on vast amounts of overtime. An overtime ban would make every other working day look more like the service on Sundays at the moment.

Don't underestimate how bad things have been allowed to get.

 

[DC2001]

The blunt answer is that I disagree, I think we're at the point now where the only remaining option is to call the unions bluff and go for radical, wholesale change. The lovely thing about strikes is that you don't have to pay people, so no problem hiring in - or even buying in, for a prolonged dispute - fleets of buses to replace train services. I say this as someone who is actively involved in my own trade union, and who has been a rep in the past; the railway is stuck in 1970s industrial relations and Aslef and the RMT are, in my view, part of the problem. The railways aren't public services anymore, they're commercial companies, and the sooner the unions realise that they too need to change with the times the better it will be for the travelling public.

I don't minimise the pain that will be experienced by some railway staff who might earn less, or have to work longer hours, under poorer conditions, but that's the world we live in and which, peculiarly perhaps, we call progress.

Maybe there needs to be a sufficiently acceptable deal to make staff willing to start working Sunday's; I am pretty sure that most people would be very unhappy with their employer if they suddenly had their contract changed to work different days which would likely result in a reduction in the goodwill overtime that staff are currently doing during the week and increase cancellations due to staffing shortages during the week. In the meantime goodwill overtime on Sunday's needs to be paid at a high enough rate to encourage enough staff to take on work on Sundays.

 

[dk1]

Various bonuses can be agreed with the unions. For example at my TOC to avoid drivers making themselves available only after the list is posted & picking/choosing jobs, we are offered £55 (started at £50 but has gone up with each annual pay deal) to make ourselves available for free day working or Sundays at least the day before the daily list is posted & thus be booked out correctly.

 

[tbtc]

Of course the real "blame" for this situation lies with the franchising model imposed on the railway by the promoters of privatisation. The necessary balkanisation was always going to lead to some TOCs being more financially successful than others and this eventually fed its way into rates of pay. Thus was created an internal market for drivers within the industry with the stronger TOCs "poaching" from the weaker ones. Over time all drivers rates have increased in real terms of course but there remain significant gaps between pay at different TOCs. This makes it harder for the weaker TOCs, like Northern, to bring in potentially unpopular changes to drivers' Ts & Cs as the resulting depressed morale simply leads to yet more drivers seeking to jump ship to another TOC at the earliest opportunity leaving the weaker TOC with the repeated costs of training new recruits off the street. Sadly as long as we continue to insist on the railway being subject to such free market forces the problem will persist unless government decides to intervene more directly. And the likely effects of this have already been noted by previous posters.

I often make the point on here that railways are inherently expensive operations best suited to high volume movements. Perhaps the biggest problem is the political view that less well used railways should be capable of being operated at lower cost: in reality this often isn't possible but at the same time there is zero appetite for scaling back the network. Ultimately the railway costs what it costs so in Northern's case the addition of Sunday to the contracted working week will need an appropriate increase in pay to make it happen. When all concerned accept this to be the case we will see the problem resolved but I fear such enlightenment is still some way off.

I agree with what you are saying about the inefficiencies of trying to run a lot of Northern's services (especially evening/ Sunday) when the high costs make the subsidy required per passenger mile rather high (e.g. with a bus you are just paying for one driver, but a 142/153 requires a driver and guard - both on more money than a bus driver - plus signalling staff, infrastructure costs etc). We've seen the success of light rail around Manchester but there seems little appetite to try to run something more efficient than current trains (if anything, the "solution" seems to be to increase costs further to try to stop staff being poached by more profitable TOCs).

However, the bit that I don't get in this thread if the bit that I've highlighted - the reason for the discrepancy appears to be the fact that ex-ATN staff have Sunday as part of the week whilst ex-FNW staff don't. Was this because the situation existed in BR days (between RRNE and RRNW)? Or did Northern Spirit/ Arriva Trains Northern "buy" Sundays from the staff (as part of a "steadying the ship" to deal with the horrific staffing problems that saw them "permanently" cancel a number of services and effectively give up on the Castleford line, due to GNER etc cherry picking staff? This period around twenty years ago was my "dark ages" (between regularly reading railway magazines in the '80s/90s and finding railway websites post-millennium, there was a brief period of wine/ women/ song!), so I have no recollection of any "buyout" to ensure Sunday services ran, so it may have been a discrepancy that goes back to BR days - I genuinely don't know.

 

[Llama]

And one common denominator 20 years ago and now? The name above the door.

 

[AndrewE]

And one common denominator 20 years ago and now? The name above the door.

Tell us then! Northern what (...whinging strikers?) or one of the the franchise owners? or the DfT pulling the strings? Or the colour of the party in power?

 

[Carlisle]

, so I have no recollection of any "buyout" to ensure Sunday services ran, so it may have been a discrepancy that goes back to BR days - I genuinely don't know.

Some BR grades, (fitters etc) had long included Sunday’s in their rostered working week, paid at an enhanced rate, however train crew & traffic grades didn’t get restructured before BR was broken up .

I believe privatised TOCs that sucessfully incorporated Sunday’s into their working week eg Virgin SWT, did so very early on when wages & growth rates were significantly lower than now, giving the TOC rather more bargaining power than they seemingly have currently.

 

[Llama]

Virgin have Sundays outside the working week. They can rely on staff goodwill. Wonder why...

 

[Carlisle]

Virgin have Sundays outside the working week. They can rely on staff goodwill. Wonder why...

ok thanks for the correction, I thought it’d been said previously on here their drivers had Sunday’s inside the working week

 

[geoffk]

Southport - Blackburn trains again all cancelled today Sunday, 11th. Last Sunday the Leeds - Man Vic trains were amended to call at Smithy Bridge, Castleton, Mills Hill and Moston, which would otherwise have had no service. I assumed that this would be the arrangement for subsequent Sundays.

But no, it appears the Leeds trains are today NOT calling at these stations. The screens at LTL are showing Rochdale and Vic only. The guard on the 11.25 to Vic confirmed to me just the two stops. The 12.25 is cancelled so no trains for two hours (this includes Rochdale).

Who is in charge?

 

[74A]

Virgin have Sundays outside the working week. They can rely on staff goodwill. Wonder why...

I understand they have to work their booked Sundays. So goodwill doesn't really apply

 

[Llama]

Northern ex-FNW drivers have to work their booked Sundays too...

 

[Llama]

Who is in charge?

That's a question a lot of staff are asking at the moment.