Rail Strike Looming

[whole diary]

[ChrisB]

Perhaps, but doing away with the old is of no benefit to those using the new.

It is, if the alternative, now that costs are being paid directly by the taxpayer, is reduction in services to achieve the savings required. Are you suggesting that the taxpayer should pump £1.5billion a year into the railways so as you retain things as currently?

It is simply saving money for a private rail operator, the profit of which goes to shareholders.

Get with the times? The operators now are paid a management fee, and costs and revenue pass to the taxpayer. So the 'profit' you refer to evaporates, turning into a £1.5billion / year loss. That's unsustainable, surely.

What's your suggestion then, if your plan would be to retain all the staff?

[ChrisB]

*Rant*

What point are you actually trying to prove with this needless pedantry over where, when and in what format the editorial I quoted was published? I saw it on the Guardian website, where it says its a Guardian editorial, and that's from where I linked and quoted.

I'm fully aware of the Guardian Media Group's setup, and the Observer's place in it. I also know that the Observer's business agenda (looking to the week ahead) is different to the groups' editorials. Hence why the piece you've quoted isn't the same ("That was in today's Observer") as the one I posted.
*Rant over*

Posted at 1830 today, so actually more likely to be tomorrow’s print edition of the Guardian.

I corrected myself, so not sure why you needed that rant?

It is indeed.

[Reading General]

Perhaps, but doing away with the old is of no benefit to those using the new.

It is, if the alternative, now that costs are being paid directly by the taxpayer, is reduction in services to achieve the savings required. Are you suggesting that the taxpayer should pump £1.5billion a year into the railways so as you retain things as currently?

It is simply saving money for a private rail operator, the profit of which goes to shareholders.

Get with the times? The operators now are paid a management fee, and costs and revenue pass to the taxpayer. So the 'profit' you refer to evaporates, turning into a £1.5billion / year loss. That's unsustainable, surely.

What's your suggestion then, if your plan would be to retain all the staff?

Yes. Retain the staff and the public should fund a railway for everyone all over the country. Defund and reduce the railway now and it won’t be coming back. The railway is of economic significance to this country even if it’s not noticeable to the operators or the, referred to as a minority, taxpayer. Yes, less people are travelling to work, largely in London, each day but reducing staff and costs now under the impression that the railway is always going to have this level of passengers is short term for profit thinking and excluding more people. This is an opportunity to build a railway for everyone, promised by this ludicrous government. You drop staff and services now and you will require incentive and demand to get the same services back when things change. The bargaining price suggested that the public will pay is nothing more than the bribery that will be used as an excuse to release more of it into the private sector and make it a consumer choice rather than what should be a life necessity. Nobody ever questions the cost of the tarmac and road infrastructure which covers this country as it’s recognised that its benefits are beyond the price of repair. Perhaps we should consider privatising roads.

[TaplowGreen]

Perhaps, but doing away with the old is of no benefit to those using the new.

It is, if the alternative, now that costs are being paid directly by the taxpayer, is reduction in services to achieve the savings required. Are you suggesting that the taxpayer should pump £1.5billion a year into the railways so as you retain things as currently?

It is simply saving money for a private rail operator, the profit of which goes to shareholders.

Get with the times? The operators now are paid a management fee, and costs and revenue pass to the taxpayer. So the 'profit' you refer to evaporates, turning into a £1.5billion / year loss. That's unsustainable, surely.

What's your suggestion then, if your plan would be to retain all the staff?

Yes. Retain the staff and the public should fund a railway for everyone all over the country. Defund and reduce the railway now and it won’t be coming back. The railway is of economic significance to this country even if it’s not noticeable to the operators or the, referred to as a minority, taxpayer. Yes, less people are travelling to work, largely in London, each day but reducing staff and costs now under the impression that the railway is always going to have this level of passengers is short term for profit thinking and excluding more people. This is an opportunity to build a railway for everyone, promised by this ludicrous government. You drop staff and services now and you will require incentive and demand to get the same services back when things change. The bargaining price suggested that the public will pay is nothing more than the bribery that will be used as an excuse to release more of it into the private sector and make it a consumer choice rather than what should be a life necessity. Nobody ever questions the cost of the tarmac and road infrastructure which covers this country as it’s recognised that its benefits are beyond the price of repair. Perhaps we should consider privatising roads.

You are Mick Lynch and I claim my £5!

(Or 10% pay rise & guarantee of no redundancies ever!)

 

[CyclingSid]

is a way of creating equal access.

Sounds like the levelling up agenda. Call for Mr Gove.

You drop staff and services now

I believe the airlines have had problems with this sort of thing.

[ellendune]

It is easy to blame this all on the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) leadership, but you don't get that sort of result in a ballot unless there is an awful lot if discontent among staff. If there is then it needs fixing. Unfortunately the treasury is now running the railways (by which I probably mean treasury minsters) and on past record they understand less about managing people than they do about engineering.  They do not understand that if you treat people well you can get away with paying them less. 

Of course they want people to leave to cut costs, but they don't understand that this approach usually means that the wrong people leave. You then end up with the wrong mix of staff. You also end up paying your worst people more than you need to do the job badly because there is no on else to do the job.  They are still discontented and therefore treat ordinary passengers in the same way that management treat them. 

[DaveHarries]

I am not a rail sector employee but if I had been then I would also have voted no to taking strike action. As it is I work in the automotive sector. I suspect, without knowing for sure, that there are union members among my colleagues. Do we get decent pay rises every year? No. Do we have decent T&C? No. Do we go on strike over it? No.

As it is my colleagues and I rely on rail for getting between jobs that we are assigned and between those jobs and the depots we work from. Having chatted with my driving colleagues in the depot I work from over the last few days it is safe to say that there is very little or no backing among us to the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers)'s planned action. It might be easy to blame the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) for the fact that the strike is on the cards (which some people might do) but it is the RMT members' decision that this is on the cards, not that of the TOCs.

Dave

[TaplowGreen]

It is easy to blame this all on the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) leadership, but you don't get that sort of result in a ballot unless there is an awful lot if discontent among staff. If there is then it needs fixing. Unfortunately the treasury is now running the railways (by which I probably mean treasury minsters) and on past record they understand less about managing people than they do about engineering.  They do not understand that if you treat people well you can get away with paying them less. 

Of course they want people to leave to cut costs, but they don't understand that this approach usually means that the wrong people leave. You then end up with the wrong mix of staff. You also end up paying your worst people more than you need to do the job badly because there is no on else to do the job.  They are still discontented and therefore treat ordinary passengers in the same way that management treat them. 

Parking the rhetoric, I'd be interested in your thoughts as to whether the RMT's headline demands are realistic in the current climate - substantively, a pay rise approaching double figures, and guarantees of no compulsory redundancies?

With the taxpayer having pumped £billions into the railways over the course of the pandemic, from where do you consider these additional costs should be funded, given falling passenger numbers, demand and therefore revenue?

[Electric train]

It is easy to blame this all on the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) leadership, but you don't get that sort of result in a ballot unless there is an awful lot if discontent among staff. If there is then it needs fixing. Unfortunately the treasury is now running the railways (by which I probably mean treasury minsters) and on past record they understand less about managing people than they do about engineering.  They do not understand that if you treat people well you can get away with paying them less. 

Of course they want people to leave to cut costs, but they don't understand that this approach usually means that the wrong people leave. You then end up with the wrong mix of staff. You also end up paying your worst people more than you need to do the job badly because there is no on else to do the job.  They are still discontented and therefore treat ordinary passengers in the same way that management treat them. 

Parking the rhetoric, I'd be interested in your thoughts as to whether the RMT's headline demands are realistic in the current climate - substantively, a pay rise approaching double figures, and guarantees of no compulsory redundancies?

With the taxpayer having pumped £billions into the railways over the course of the pandemic, from where do you consider these additional costs should be funded, given falling passenger numbers, demand and therefore revenue?

Negotiations are (or should be) about reaching a compromise between the 2 sides demands.  The thing that will hamper the compromise will be the Government's hand cuffs placed on the Rail Industries Exc leadership teams.

With all the other travel chaos currently the Unions may see they have an advantage with the public discontent with the issues ant sea and air ports, that is an advantage for the Unions and their members and not for the travelling public but such is the nature of industrial disputes

[IndustryInsider]

The general feeling amongst people working for the TOCs^▸ (Train Operating Company) I've spoken to is that a 4-5% increase is acceptable.  The main beef is the alleged prevention from the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) to the operators and NR^» (Network Rail - home page) of opening pay discussions after 2 or 3 years of no increases and the cost of living crisis.

The RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) ballot result, with such a strong mandate (much stronger than I thought it would be), sends a very clear message to the DfT that staff won't 'roll over' and accept peanuts or nothing.  And, naturally, the Union want a commitment to prevent compulsory redundancies.

It looks like an ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) ballot along similar lines will be taking place over the next couple of weeks.

Doesn't mean a strike will happen (though it is quite likely).  Definitely doesn't mean the RMT's demands will be even close to being met and the end of the 'dispute'.  As ET says, they hardly ever are...that's negotiating.  Perhaps haggling is a better word!

[GBM]

I've always felt that being a union member is a good idea.
The few ballots I've been involved in, only one resulted in a strike.
We didn't want to inconvenience the travelling public, well, we actually hated the idea.
Negotiations were stalemated, so out we went for 48 hours.

The option was not to strike, and accept a far lower pay settlement and a change to working conditions to our detriment.
But from some views above, that is better than striking.
If we had accepted a lower settlement, etc; then the following year we would be accepting a lower settlement again, and a change to working conditions.  That seems a race to the bottom.  We would soon be on minimum wage & dreadful working conditions, but hey, we could hold our heads up and say we didn't inconvenience anyone but ourselves.

Apart from ACAS, there's little middle ground.

[JayMac]

When did negotiations begin? From what I can gather the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) balloted for strike action before any meaningful discussions began. Arse about face surely?

[IndustryInsider]

When did negotiations begin? From what I can gather the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) balloted for strike action before any meaningful discussions began. Arse about face surely?

The unions claim that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) would not allow train operators to open negotiations with them I believe.

[JayMac]

When did negotiations begin? From what I can gather the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) balloted for strike action before any meaningful discussions began. Arse about face surely?

The unions claim that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) would not allow train operators to open negotiations with them I believe.

A belief? Any corroboration?

Last week the DfT urged the RMT to come to the negotiating table. Saying they were disappointed that the RMT had balloted for strike action before entering negotiations. Someone's lying. Much as I loathe the current government I believe them in this instance.

[Electric train]

When did negotiations begin? From what I can gather the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) balloted for strike action before any meaningful discussions began. Arse about face surely?

The unions claim that the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about) would not allow train operators to open negotiations with them I believe.

The same applied to Network Rail ......... DfT and No10 steer was any pay award has to be on 'efficiencies' above and beyond the 'Modernisation of the Industry' process that is currently ongoing

However it would seem that NR^» (Network Rail - home page) (aka DfT / No10) have made a 2.5% pay offer from 1st July 2022 to the TSSA^» (Transport Salaried Staffs' Association - about) for management grades, the TSSA have said this offer does not resolve the dispute ..................... negotiations / haggling continues