Thousands of Network Rail redundancies under Labour's GBR plans

[whole diary]

[TaplowGreen]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/thousands-of-rail-workers-to-lose-jobs-under-labour-s-nationalisation-plans/ar-AA1Uc5JX?ocid=socialshare

I wonder what the Unions will have to say?

[grahame]

Thousands of rail workers are to be made redundant as part of Labour's plan to nationalise the railways.

Network Rail is making cuts to its workforce as it faces a budget shortfall potentially as high as £1.8bn, insiders said.

An estimated 2,000 employees out of the organisation's total headcount of 41,000 could be laid off in the coming months.

The Q$64,000 for me is "what will/would happen to their work" is it happens.   
Would someone else take it over from within the remaining 39,000?
Would the work remain undone and a backlog be generated?
Is there work that is no longer needed being done by these people?
Would things like speed standards be reduced so that less maintenance is needed?
Would AI and other automation take over?
Would the network be reduced / part passed to local operators to take on maintenance staff?
Would the work they do still be done but by private contractors?
Does the goverment's plan actually consider these issues?

[ChrisB]

Might be rationalisation of back office?

[Mark A]

I'm hoping it doesn't impact NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s effective 24/7 helpline.

Anecdote not data: being spooked by something, after new year, I had cause to ring that number close to 11pm on a Sunday night and it was answered, by a person, within a few seconds. No interminable sequence of hold music interspersed with an upbeat voice repeating 'Your call is *very* important to us' which is what I heard when at NR's request I also rang the organisation immediately responsible for the structure in question.

Mark

[Chris from Nailsea]

I'm hoping it doesn't impact NR^» (Network Rail - home page)'s effective 24/7 helpline.
Anecdote not data: being spooked by something, after new year, I had cause to ring that number close to 11pm on a Sunday night and it was answered, by a person, within a few seconds. No interminable sequence of hold music interspersed with an upbeat voice repeating 'Your call is *very* important to us' which is what I heard when at NR's request I also rang the organisation immediately responsible for the structure in question.
Mark

Thanks for your post, Mark A.

For all of our readers, please see also https://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=31262.msg370149#msg370149

Chris from Nailsea.

[grahame]

Might be rationalisation of back office?

Or could it be things like this?

from New Civil Engineer

31 of 50 previously promised Access for All schemes to progress while others mothballed

[ChrisB]

A tweet from a rail professional said that the 15% were from a management group - so 15% of that group - and equates to about 4 personnel.

Meanwhile, the RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers) also tweeted yesterday to say that they had won their Network Rail members a 3.8 inflation-proof rise, with no cuts required.

For more on the Access for All grants, see another thread in The Wider picture in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) Board.

[Electric train]

Thousands of rail workers are to be made redundant as part of Labour's plan to nationalise the railways.

Network Rail is making cuts to its workforce as it faces a budget shortfall potentially as high as £1.8bn, insiders said.

An estimated 2,000 employees out of the organisation's total headcount of 41,000 could be laid off in the coming months.

The Q$64,000 for me is "what will/would happen to their work" is it happens.   
Would someone else take it over from within the remaining 39,000?
Would the work remain undone and a backlog be generated?
Is there work that is no longer needed being done by these people?
Would things like speed standards be reduced so that less maintenance is needed?
Would AI and other automation take over?
Would the network be reduced / part passed to local operators to take on maintenance staff?
Would the work they do still be done but by private contractors?
Does the goverment's plan actually consider these issues?

The privatisation generated a lot of duplication of jobs, for example trains are delayed / cancelled the TOC^▸ (Train Operating Company) / TOCs and FOC^▸ (Freight Operating Company, or possibly 'free of charge', depending on context) put in a claim "schedule 8 payment" for example, this can be TOC on TOC, TOC on FOC TOC on NR^» (Network Rail - home page) all these can go through attribution (aka apportion blame) if there is a dispute ................ this employs a lot of people; Route Control will have both TOC and NR staff.  There will be other rolls and jobs where there is duplication or similarity.

For managers grades (Bands 1 to 4) there was a "no compulsory redundancies for 3 years" agreement in the in 2024/5 pay settlement which set the pay raise for 3 pay deal at RPI^▸ (Revenue Protection Inspector, or Retail Price Index, depending on context) plus a small %  I suspect there will be many who will be willing to take voluntary redundancies especially those close to retirement but that will be a significant experience drain