In previous years when ‘big’ dates such as New Year’s Day have fallen on a Sunday, an enhanced rate of pay was offered. I imagine the DfT» put a stop to that this year, and as many traincrew have the option to not work it, they have decided not to bother this time.
Yes, as far as I know there is no additional payment being offered across the Christmas and New Year period at all, except for double pay on the 27th December Christmas Day Bank Holiday in lieu.
i can see this unfortunately going on for at least another year. If the government aren’t prepared to sit down with NHS staff then us rail staff haven’t got a hope at present.
What I think also hampers progress is the government and RDG‡ are negotiating with the RMT▸ covering all TOCs▸ . You would probably find progress would be a lot quicker if the individual TOCs were free to negotiate with the RMT. If you dropped some of the conditions, namely DOO▸ , a blanket closure of all tickets offices and the Sunday working proposals, you would probably find a 5% pay rise would be accepted.
It does need sorting urgently though. Morale is rock bottom, once that’s gone goodwill quickly vanishes well.
I personally can't see this going on for another year.
The RMT have escalated their action recently, and you may well find
ASLEF» /
TSSA» will do the same.
That was a step that had to be taken by the RMT, as the limited amount of action they were taking wasn't really getting them anywhere.
IMHO▸ it will force a resolution within a couple of months if situations like next week, where the whole week is wiped out with action, continue on a more frequent basis than they did in the first six months.
That resolution might be the strike collapsing, or it might be a negotiated settlement. If it's the latter I expect it to be a settlement based on the offers to RMT members that are already on the table, perhaps slightly tweaked so that the RMT and DfT/TOC's can all claim some kind of victory.
Then it remains to be seen what the longer term damage to the industry will be. I would say probably no line closures as that will look too bad for the Government, but certainly reductions in the number of services and length of trains. For example, you could see services running once per hour where they currently run every 30 minutes, more shuttle services replacing through trains (North and South Cotswolds might be obvious candidates for that) or the TransWilts going back to its pre-December 2013 timetable.