Great Western Coffee Shop

From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8363776.stm):

Hmm.

Just a thought, but if NR was trying to switch rosters from an eight-hour shift to a twelve-hour shift, I would hazard a guess that there would be a huge amount of bluster emanating from certain parties about how NR was trying to compromise safety by forcing safety-critical staff to work unacceptably long shifts.

And pleeeease don't tell me there's a possibility of a Christmas strike on the railways! I'm already on tenterhooks waiting to find out if I'll actually be able to fly home with BA as it is!

No its the other way round.  From 12 hour to 8.  That is why you dont get any bluster from the RMT about safety / fatigue etc.  Personally I think 12 hour shifts are too long and 8 seems about right but it seems the siggies like to have more days off and work really long shifts.

You see this is unions are bad.

It doesnt matter what a company do, the unions will complain.

Unless its a massive amount more money, they object to any change!

There is a problem with long shifts for signallers convenience, and it appears the RAIB are onto the problem. The report into the 66 derailment at East Somerset Junction near Westbury dwells on the signaller's shift patterns, and cross refers to some other cases.

http://www.raib.gov.uk/sites/raib/cms_resources.cfm?file=/091110_R282009_East%20Somerset%20Junction.pdf (http://www.raib.gov.uk/sites/raib/cms_resources.cfm?file=/091110_R282009_East%20Somerset%20Junction.pdf)

So as suggested above, it would be next to impossible for the safety card to be played in this dispute.

Paul

 

Good for the unions they are only working the capitalist system. They are just exploitng a skill which is in short supply.

Just like the bankers  the only trouble is that as they are in charge they can get away with it, whereas the signalmen (signallers belong in war films  on the back of  a warship bridge and are chirpy cokneys first to be hit when a shell lands) are  seen as troublemakers.

perhaps NR are doing the right thing (12 hour shifts must be dangerous surely?), but it aint what you do it is the way that you do it, and so unilaterally changing T&C without proper negotiations would be wrong. 

From the BBC: (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8395272.stm)

 I wonder what experience you have had to make your ill informed generalisation.

 None probably, as usual you're talking out of your arse.

Now, now, Henry - steady on! FallenAngel has a point about unions objecting to change and complaining no matter what a company does, though as she isn't in the industry (or a similar one), she doesn't understand what benefits unionism has for the industry. I've tried to explain in a balanced way the benefits and drawbacks, but she's convinced herself, so it usually falls on deaf ears.

As for this particular dispute, the signallers concerned are clearly reluctant to give up the large number of days off they currently get for working 12-hour shifts. It's difficult to see the union winning this one, as there is no 'safety' card they can play. Although they get plenty of rest periods and if working in front of a VDU then laws on the time you can spend looking at it apply, it's pretty obvious that 8-hour shifts would be intrinsically safer. The fact they only voted 2-1 for strike action hints that with a compromise or two here and there, the dispute will be resolved quite easily and 8-hour shifts will be in place as desired.

Hmm ... somehow subjects like this seem to bring out views at both ends of the spectrum, and with a lot of inflammable gas being blown in from both sides it can get rather hot if it catches light.

Please don't strike another match, anyone!

If I can give an insight from the other side of the fence, as one of those involved in the dispute, because there is very little information in the public domain for the public to judge if we are being unreasonable or not.

First off, this is not a union propaganda message so please don't take it that way. I am a 30 year railman who has never, in all of my service even considered taking industrial action until now.

The dispute involves between 70 and 80 signallers in the South Wales area, all of whom have one thing in common. They will be the first of many that will, within the next few years, be housed in the new "Welsh Assembly" led state of the art control centre in Cardiff. This will include all of those from North/Mid and West Wales as well, since it is the Welsh Assembly's stated aim to create Welsh Rail, where all parts of the rail network in Wales are controlled from Cardiff. The first part has already been achieved, when management of the North Wales coast route was transferred to Cardiff six months ago to join the existing South Wales control. Now they start on bringing all the signallers under the same roof, starting January 4th.

The Newport signallers are the first to be affected, with 6 being forced to transfer in January and the remaining 12 next October. I say forced, because although NR will say that four volunteered to transfer, it was made quite clear that if no "volunteers" came forward, six would be chosen, and if they refused to go, they would be making themselves redundant. As it is, two have been forced to transfer against their wishes to the new location.

The staff in all of the larger South Wales signal boxes, together with the Vale of Glamorgan, have worked 12 hour shifts without difficulty for a number of years. In the case of Newport, they were introduced at the company's request 12 years ago. The majority of the staff working in Newport have joined the team since that time, on the understanding of the shift pattern. Many, like myself, have actively chosen the shift pattern after many years of working 8 hour shifts in various jobs. The average age of the staff in Newport is about 40. The majority of us have done jobs in the outside world, and know what it is like. Many have children, and the shift pattern lends itself to allowing a better family life, easier child care arrangements, less travelling, all things that this Government has been actively promoting over the past years.

All that the staff who are immediately affected by this impending move have ever asked, is that the upheaval of moving working locations is kept to a minimum. NR promised in fact, to ensure that this was the case when the move was first discussed. It is bad enough for the staff in Newport that they have to travel to probably the most difficult part of Cardiff to access from that direction. On match days and special events, access will be doubly difficult, and travelling time will often be extended. What NR is now demanding is that we also work on an additional 80 days a year, with all the costs and problems that it brings. This will have a devastating affect for many on ourselves and our families. More importantly, if NR are allowed to do it this time, they will have a precedent for all future openings and for removing the 12 hour facility from all other areas. This is why many of my colleagues nationally are watching events with equal interest and concern. The decision was made not to involve them in the ballot at this stage because it does not directly involve them. We chose to limit the effect to the immediate area so as to interupt the lives of as few as possible while proving our point. We apologise in advance to those who are affected.

It is not only the extra costs for travel amd loss of free time that this is about, it's about extra childcare costs, other family members having to change their working arrangements to fit in. At present, several wives of signallers work part time so that they can work when their husbands are off work. What effect does that have when the main bread winner is in work for two or three days a week extra, often at antisocial hours. From the outset of negotiations, which started seven months ago, NR have catagorically refused to budge on the issue of 8 hour shifts. They claim it is to save costs. At first it was ^1600 a man less per year, (although this disregards the additional costs paid under redundancy arrangements for travel because they are being paid by somebody else). Safety issues were never even mentioned. They even accepted that in terms of fatigue, the choice of 8 hours versus 12 hours was fatigue neutral. The latest figure quoted is ^136000 total additional cost, although where that comes from who knows. We've also been told that if we have 12 hour shifts, six others will have to lose their jobs, which is tantamount to blackmail.

We have tried to come to a compromise. We have even offered to allow spare capacity in Newport (which is built into the 12 hour roster that NR agreed with the remaining staff only two weeks ago) to travel to Cardiff to cover the one shift every 12 weeks that, under their table of organisation, makes any attempt to create a roster which is complaint with agreed principals impossible. At every turn, we have been rebuffed, deceived, and told outright lies. The strike action is the result of 7 months of outright frustration on the part of the staff . It could end tomorrow with one simple acknowledgement that we are entitled to retain what we already have. We're not asking for extra money, or less hours, or better conditions. Just to be able to keep what we already have.

The staff who do the job have all accepted, when they joined the grades, that there are certain limitations on their social lives, which the job requires. This job does not just affect our lives for the 8 or 12 hours that we are in work like so many. We have to modify our social lives well before we actually start work. For example, few realise that to be safe, we are advised not to drink alcohol within 12 hours of starting work. Reporting for duty with any amount greater than the natually occuring level of alcohol in the bloodstream is a dismissable offence and we are subject to random screening. You can quite happily drive to work, get stopped and pass a breathaliser test with flying colours, and still be found under the influence at work and sacked, three hours after you've started work. This is not so bad if you have three days off between shifts, but imagine if this is your one day off in thirteen days. How many others would accept the imposition of that sort of limitation?

That is why more and more signallers have chosen the 12 hour shift pattern, and the majority of those who cannot swap view us with a degree of envy. Almost all signallers who are on 8 hour shifts will tell you that in order to obtain any sort of quality time off (we are talking four consecutive days including a Sunday), they have to work strings of seven or eight consecutive shifts, often followed by one day off and another string of five or six days. I would ask what is safer, to work a maximum of four 12 hour night shifts, followed by three days off (as we currently do), or a run of seven late shifts, with a days off and seven nights with no guarantee that you won't be asked to work on your day off as well. The maximum number of shifts that a signaller can work in 13 x 8  hour shifts in a row before a day off and many have been asked to do that in the past, because of a policy of always maintaining vacancies for budgetary purposes.

The matter of the RAIB report into the Westbury derailment was also raised. This has been jumped on by NR as a nice little deflection towards the safety aspect, even though the report actually said that fatigue COULD have played a part. (No absollute certainty there). If you read the report in full, it raises a few key issues. The member of staff concerned had a roster which saw him working six consecutive shifts. This was his sixth. In the past five, he had finished at midnight, 6am, midnight, 6am and midnight. It is no wonder that his body clock was all to hell with a pattern like that. The background of it was that it was decided that one man was all that was needed to operated the 80, or so miles of route that Westbury covered, after midnight, and so one of the night shifts was withdrawn in order to cut a post and save money. All well and good, and given the traffic which tends to be reasonably light early morning, they are correct. That is until something goes wrong and the workload rockets, mainly due to the number of phonecalls that you will recieve, often totally unnecessary. If you also look at the comparison between his base roster and his actual hours, you will find that in the previous month he had worked six addtional shifts, all because Westbury carried two vacancies. As already said, it is an NR policy to keep vacancies, because it is cheaper to pay overtime than incur pension and national insurance payments of another on the headcount. This has been going on for years.

Sorry for the long, and first post. If it allows a few of our customers to have a more informed discussion on the subject, then I will feel it's been worth it at least.

And let us hope, that we're all in work next Monday because none of us want to strike but it is our last hope and resort to keep what we have fought long and hard for.

An interesting, an robust defence, of the signalman's position on this issue, 'We apologise for....'.

It is always welcome to hear from those directly affected by changes to working practices. Your post has certainly opened my eyes to the minutiae of the problems faced by the changes NR are trying to bring in. However, I remain of the opinion that 8 hour shifts are far better in such a safety critical job.

Oh, and welcome to the forum. The more 'insiders' we hear from the better. Helps us passengers better understand what is involved in providing us with a train service.

Welcome to the forum "We apologise for..." and a very interesting insight to the goings on at Cardiff.

bignosemac:  Taken as a simple issue, (for example working 8hrs X 4 days versus 12hrs X 4 days), you would be able to argue that 8hr shifts would cause a lower level of fatigue.  However, as has now been explained, you have to take into account changed rest patterns and has been accepted the fatigue level is neutral.

Furthermore, the level of fatigue could be increased under 8 hr shifts, as no doubt NR would allow workers to work 4 hours overtime and complete a 12 hour shift if circumstances required.  I cannot therefore accept NR arguing these changes under grounds of reducing fatigue or increasing safety.

I refer you back to the following:

I'd be interested to see if FA holds the same opinion now of unions under these circumstances?

Welcome along, We apologise for..., and thanks for a detailed, reasoned and eloquent view of this one from the other side of the fence!

Please may I echo the welcome to "We apologise for ..."; I'm delighted that discussions are resumed on the issues and case.

Railway signalling is one of those areas that's critical to the passenger's safety (and timekeeping), but something that few of us travellers know little about.   I travelled by train on Sunday and spoke with all the usual groups ... but not with signallers nor permanent way staff (again "as usual"). So this is an educational insite / thread.

Half a lifetime ago, I worked shifts ... and they started out as 5 x 8 hour shifts per week.  We (folks doing the job) got together and suggested that we switch to 4 x 10 hour shifts and indeed we did so ... 8 days on and 6 days off.  Quality of life much improved; reduced travel to work.  It was a hard physical job; by the 8th day it was "could do with a break" time, but we were always double manned on the Friday, with the fresh person coming on too for what was by far the busiest day of the week.  And whilst the job was not safety critical, it was ceratianly one in which errors could be very expensive indeed. I just add that to the melting pot ... just hope that something that works for everyone can be worked out.  And I'll probably make a few folks jealous as to how we managed to negotiate the shift pattern that suited everyone!

Yes I do - I will do a detailed response to the arguments in the next half hour or so but, at the end of the day, in TODAY's economic climate, there are plenty of people out there unemployed who would be skilled and able enough to do the job without the bellyaching going on.

Edit - some of the points I have sympathy with to AN EXTENT - but I shall make comparisons to the non unionized vast majority of the workforce.

This seems to be one of the few cases lately where industrial action is understandable compared to many other disputes on the railway recently. Lately we have seen unions going on strike without encouraging both management and employees to make sacrifices which has led to a large number of people to hate unions in the current climate, myself included. There is a mentality that people working on the railway deserve beter pay on conditions whilst the majority of people have to cope with the opposite to keep their jobs and are quite happy to do so when they look at the alternative which is being unemployed.

Back to the dispute however, this seems to be that staff have been open for discussion to come to an agreement that both parties are happy with as the signallers are willing to make some concessions to reach a suitable conclusion. I just hope something canbe sorted that means the signallers do not suffer but also cost saving and efficiency can be achieved which NR must be after with the new system

Not the companies problem.  They have decided to relocate the office - they can choose to do so.  They could relocate to outer siberia or the outer hebrides if that was appropriate - not their problem.  I know of people who have had to move to the other end of the country - literally - to keep a job because the office relocated.  If you don't want to work in the new office, you don't have a job.  Not the companies problem - its yours.  You clearly have much better prospects or opportunities elsewhere.



If you google my user id - mainly the former one - you will see this is a common statement I make anywhere so is not related to this discussion.  Having children is a lifestyle choice.  If you want them, its your choice, you're problem.  Not your employers, not anyone elses.   There are too many people on the planet already.  I won't expand on having children and expecting others to deal with the associated fallout ......



 

This is the only bit I really have sympathy for.  I am used to working 10am to 6pm with no lunch - and even 10m to 8pm but only four days a week. Currently having to do 0830am to 5pm is killing me.  However I am gradually bringing them around to my way of thinking - by Feb I'll have it cracked.  


If it were a condition of keeping a job I wanted to keep, yes I would.  


So to get meaningful time off you need four days in a row?  I like my drink, but its not essential to having "meaningful" time off.  Unless drinking were my only hobby.


I cant comment as I do not know.

Look - I do have some sympathy - even despite my hardline approach which is how many out there will view it.  

I just don't think that what is essentially a public service (I know its privatised but tell that to the travelling public) should hold the public to ransom.  Its different than if Ford go on strike - if the cars aren't produced you go buy a vauxhall.  If the signals are on strike - I cant get to work - there is no reasonable alternative.  If I don't get to work, at best I lose money at worst (as happened in 2007/08 but that was not strikes but FGW unreliability) I lose a contract entirely.  However, I cannot force notwork rail to change - if I use the rail I use the rail.  A non service the customer can force a change by using a competitor.  In what is in effect a monopoly you cant.  

I WOULD support unions and strike action if there were different suppliers of signals and trains so that if, say signal company A went on strike, the TOC's could use signal company B.  I know it would not work in terms of rail signalling buy I'm trying to explain  as best I can.

The point is - this affects me but I can't do anything to affect the outcome so why should I suffer.

All my quoting went tits up

In a nutshell - I have sympathy but I have put the opposite arguments.  And I don't see why I who cant do squat about the outcome, should suffer f I cant get from A to B

FA, I've taken the liberty of editing your quoting so hopefully it's now tit-free: you need to use a forward slash rather than a back slash when you close the quote, then it'll work fine (i.e. [/quote] NOT [\quote]).

I find myself sitting on the fence somewhat with this one - I can see both sides of the argument, particularly as someone who is likely to be affected by strike action on British Airways in the next couple of weeks. I find the signallers' arguments rather more persuasive that those of the BA cabin crew (which, quite frankly I think are largely specious).

And yet, in all probability, BA's cabin crew will vote "yes" to a strike next Monday. That strike can be called as early as 21 December. If it is, then having booked a flight home to the other side of the pond for Christmas months ago before any of this blew up, I am faced with having to spend a significant amount of money to book a last-minute ticket with another airline if I want to see my friends and family.

No doubt if a Christmas strike is called, the union will claim it was "forced into it by BA's intransigence" or words to that effect, and that they don't want to inconvenience passengers but had no alternative (garbage - the mandate to strike from a ballot remains good for 28 days so if they choose to they can miss Christmas entirely).

But my point, ultimately, is this: I am an innocent party in the argument between BA and its staff, and yet I and many others may end up not just inconvenienced but severely out of pocket to boot.

Likewise with a rail strike - as a customer, even though I really genuinely can see where the signallers are coming from, it's difficult to buy the suggestion that "we don't want to inconvenience passengers" when that's an obvious, necessary and unavoidable consequence of the action that will be taken.

Commuting by rail is a lifestyle choice. If you want to do that, it's your choice, and your problem. Not the RMT, not anyone else's.

Now, what did I do with my devil's advocate smiley? I'm sure I've used it before. Ah... (http://www.takeforum.com/forum/images/smiles/satanlook.gif)

Well what can I say.

Thank you for the welcome, it was much appreciated. It was never my intention when I posted to try and change peoples minds or attitudes, so I take no offence if anyone disagrees with what I wrote, and they get no argument from me. I know that for many, the inconvenience suffered will over-ride any understanding of a situation because that is human nature. I suffer exactly the same myself. Sit in a queue of traffic for two hours, you tend to forget that the reason that you are sat there is that somebody has been severely injured in a crash, you only concentrate on the missed appointment that it's caused you. What I was truely grateful for was the obvious understanding that posters have since expressed.

I have no doubt that there will be trains running next week whatever we do. Already, we are having visits from managers who we have never seen before, and we are being told to go away while they spend an hour at our workstation under the observation of other managers. They will no doubt claim that the personel brought in to maintain the train service will be fully compliant with training legislation and will be able to provide documentation to back up this competency. However, we spend at least one month on each workstation training to be able to deal instantly with every one of the situations that can arise before we can be considered competent to work them alone, and another six months on probation after passing out. If anyone thinks back to Ladbroke Grove, the signaller there had 12 seconds from being aware that an accident may take place to possibly avert or greatly reduce the extent of the accident, and was criticised for not having done so, although the report was highly critical of the training that he had received in dealing with these situations.

None of the managers doing the training have worked in this signal box on a regular basis for at least five years. I will make no allegations, but leave it to everyone else's judgment as to whether this is suitable behaviour for a company charged with your safety.

The job itself is not difficult, and can often be quite mundain, that is until things go wrong. It's four o'clock in the morning, and everything is going smoothly when suddenly a bell rings out, then another, you start counting and get to six. You're hunting the panel to see which button has a small light illuminated above it, you've got four to choose from and just manage to catch a glimpse of it before it goes out. Within a second, you flick a switch and a signal goes back to red. You double check to make sure that no trains have passed it in the last couple of minutes, and that nothing is approaching it, even though you know in your head that there hasn't been one. Now you can relax a bit and pick up a phone and confirm that you have stopped trains. You realise just how fast your heart rate has gone up as the adrenaline pumps around your body.

It may read like a good novel, but all the best ones are based on fact. What I've just described is a scene that is very fresh in the memory. It happened this morning, and it was the first time in five years that I've ever received an emergency alarm without being first warned about it. The situation was real, and it is by good grace that no train from my direction was affected, otherwise the pressure really goes on. You have to stop that train. Sadly, the man in Cardiff was not so fortunate, because it was he that received the call from a driver to say that he had hit something in the Rumney area. It turned out to be two people, who both sadly lost their lives. The number of hours I had already worked did not affect my judgement, or my reaction times. I was 10 hours into my second shift, and after tonight, will be able to put the incident behind me for a few days. I find myself wondering if I would have been so responsive if I was six hours into my seventh shift out of ten, which is what the latest proposal that our management is suggesting we should work.

I am personally torn between the effects that this has on the public, and the effect that the proposed changes to my chosen personal lifestyle will cause. Having worked with the public for many years, including for a company not so far from your hearts, and spent a long time commuting on that same company's trains as you do, I can also sympathise with your own personal situations. Getting home from work at 2am in the morning instead of 11pm because of severe disruption is never a joke whatever the cause.

 

You are the most sincere member of railway staff I have seen when it comes to affecting the public as sadly many see the public as an interference with them doing hteir job and getting paid. I really sympathise for you at the moment as many disputes on the network have led to the public haveing no sympathy for striking staff as a result of people like Bob Crow who use unions as a class war or a staff vs management dispute where no one really wins.

By the way I am one of the people who will be affected by the strikes but in this situation I am on the side of the signallers and agree a strike may be the best action in this instance. I hope everything turns out well however for the signallers and Network Rail so that both parties come to an agreement that benefits both parties and the travelling public before the strikes are due to take place.

From Network Rail: (http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/content/Detail.aspx?ReleaseID=4901&NewsAreaID=2)

Rather predictably, the RMT view is somewhat different.  From rail-news.com (http://rail-news.com/2009/12/11/six-days-of-strike-action/):

I have a feeling I might personally know one of the NR managers why is likely be drafted in to cover for signallers. The person I am thinking of has signalling in his blood, having spent his entire career working for the railways in that capacity. His knowledge and experience are, quite frankly, intimidating: if (and I admit, this is something of an "if") all of the "relief" signalling staff are of his calibre I would have no concerns about safety.

That's a little bit like saying that a driver of 40 years experience of driving between London and Bristol would have no problems taking a HST down the ECML from London to Edinburgh after a couple of trips down there in the cab. Signalboxes, and the areas they cover, are by their very nature unique.

Whilst I can see what you're saying, and NR certainly won't be exposing the public to genuine risk of the levels the RMT would have you believe, there is no substitute for local knowledge and experience - if, God forbid, there was another incident like Ladbroke Grove, then NR would get an absolute carpeting!

I should probably have clarified, but that signalling experience has been in South Wales!

From Wales Online: (http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/12/12/managers-drafted-in-to-minimise-rail-strike-disruption-91466-25374884/)

Services were suffering slightly disruption at lunchtime today at Cardiff Queen Street anyway. Interesting posts by the way. I'm a shiftworker in a control centre- 7 on (7hr mornings, 7hr afternoons, 10hour nights then 4/5 off.

I have had to relocate twice, and been employed in my current role for 2.5 years, but some people here have had to relocate in their careers 6 or 7 times!! All round this sceptred isle. (similar agegroup; mid 30s to early 50s)
Interestingly the company I worked for relocated to Newport about 3 years ago having been based in Cardiff and Bristol for years. None of us threatened strike action and we work in a safety prioirity industry

I'm all for up the workers, seriously, but sometimes I think the rail industry does take the pith.

From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8429648.stm):

Well on the basis of the effectiveness of the last strike, they will have to think of something else other than a mere repeat performance.

From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/8438483.stm):

Good old Bob. Managing to cram 'determined', 'dispute', 'cutting corners', 'demanding', 'management', 'beck and call' and 'impact' in only two sentences is pretty impressive.

Highly unusual that he didn't include 'bullying'. 

Paul

....or 're-nationalisation'

From the Network Rail press release (http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=4935&NewsAreaID=2&SearchCategoryID=7):

Why is it NR are saying things like "holding passengers to hostage", when they have such "robust plans" in the event of strike action?

My opinion is that strike action probably is not going to make much difference as NR are generally coping to date, but I am not sure what the answer is.