How to fix the Southern Rail dispute?
Discussion
Dr Jekyll said:
So let me summarise:
There aren't enough drivers so overtime is constantly required.
They have some guards with nothing useful to do but don't want them to be out of a job.
If only they could find some people to retrain as drivers? Or find an alternative job for the guards?
The company don't want more drivers or employees. More pension contributions and NI contributions etc or whatever other benefits they get, some poor manager's simply been told from above to run the schedule with as few employees as possible. There aren't enough drivers so overtime is constantly required.
They have some guards with nothing useful to do but don't want them to be out of a job.
If only they could find some people to retrain as drivers? Or find an alternative job for the guards?
They make more money by not having enough drivers and making up the shortfall with overtime, which is great as long as the drivers volunteer to come in for overtime.
If you're trying to run a scheduled train service with not enough employees and relying on them coming in on their time off, you need them to be willing to help out or make the rewards worthwhile. Doesn't sound like that's happened here,
There's a toxic atmosphere where everyone's pissed off. The rail service was already not fit for purpose before all this kicked off. Years of underinvestment, private companies running everything lean as possible and now The transport minister wading in talking about banning strikers as though it's all the employees fault. It's a failure on many many levels. Blaming the strikers isn't going to solve the problems.
loafer123 said:
Chrisgr31 said:
loafer123 said:
schmunk said:
Steve_W said:
Found this article interesting - written by a commuter:
https://medium.com/@xciv/southern-rail-transport-s...
Looking at the table of incidents roughly half-way down the page, a very significant number of them (more than half?) appear to have occurred whilst the train was already moving, meaning that DOO cannot be considered a factor.https://medium.com/@xciv/southern-rail-transport-s...
Indeed, where DOO is in use, from that table only 1 involved the driver not seeing a passenger's hand in the door, 2 are the subject of detailed reports not available and all of the others were trains with the doors already closed and the train departing.
Given the author is an IT professional, his use of logic is surprisingly weak.
The arguments around DOO are complex, but I think the biggest concern is the one that drivers dont see what is there to be seen in the the CCTV. I actually thin this is the same reason cyclists get knocked off. Drivers see what they want to see, not what is there to see.
Even if you are right, there will still be incidents with guard operated trains, and the minimal number of incidents overall shows how safe it is whether DOO or not.
Robertj21a said:
There still needs to be a clear explanation as to how Thameslink can operate their 12 coach train on the very same lines without any guard - and have done for years.
I agree. It would be nice if one of the journalists put this question to the union guy to see what his response would be.On the bbc news last night they said that when 'DOO' was introduced on scotrail, the compromise to keep the unions at bay was that the driver opened the doors and the guard closed them
What an absolute farce...
El stovey said:
The company don't want more drivers or employees. More pension contributions and NI contributions etc or whatever other benefits they get, some poor manager's simply been told from above to run the schedule with as few employees as possible.
They make more money by not having enough drivers and making up the shortfall with overtime, which is great as long as the drivers volunteer to come in for overtime.
If you're trying to run a scheduled train service with not enough employees and relying on them coming in on their time off, you need them to be willing to help out or make the rewards worthwhile. Doesn't sound like that's happened here,
There's a toxic atmosphere where everyone's pissed off. The rail service was already not fit for purpose before all this kicked off. Years of underinvestment, private companies running everything lean as possible and now The transport minister wading in talking about banning strikers as though it's all the employees fault. It's a failure on many many levels. Blaming the strikers isn't going to solve the problems.
Well said.They make more money by not having enough drivers and making up the shortfall with overtime, which is great as long as the drivers volunteer to come in for overtime.
If you're trying to run a scheduled train service with not enough employees and relying on them coming in on their time off, you need them to be willing to help out or make the rewards worthwhile. Doesn't sound like that's happened here,
There's a toxic atmosphere where everyone's pissed off. The rail service was already not fit for purpose before all this kicked off. Years of underinvestment, private companies running everything lean as possible and now The transport minister wading in talking about banning strikers as though it's all the employees fault. It's a failure on many many levels. Blaming the strikers isn't going to solve the problems.
legzr1 said:
El stovey said:
The company don't want more drivers or employees. More pension contributions and NI contributions etc or whatever other benefits they get, some poor manager's simply been told from above to run the schedule with as few employees as possible.
They make more money by not having enough drivers and making up the shortfall with overtime, which is great as long as the drivers volunteer to come in for overtime.
If you're trying to run a scheduled train service with not enough employees and relying on them coming in on their time off, you need them to be willing to help out or make the rewards worthwhile. Doesn't sound like that's happened here,
There's a toxic atmosphere where everyone's pissed off. The rail service was already not fit for purpose before all this kicked off. Years of underinvestment, private companies running everything lean as possible and now The transport minister wading in talking about banning strikers as though it's all the employees fault. It's a failure on many many levels. Blaming the strikers isn't going to solve the problems.
Well said.They make more money by not having enough drivers and making up the shortfall with overtime, which is great as long as the drivers volunteer to come in for overtime.
If you're trying to run a scheduled train service with not enough employees and relying on them coming in on their time off, you need them to be willing to help out or make the rewards worthwhile. Doesn't sound like that's happened here,
There's a toxic atmosphere where everyone's pissed off. The rail service was already not fit for purpose before all this kicked off. Years of underinvestment, private companies running everything lean as possible and now The transport minister wading in talking about banning strikers as though it's all the employees fault. It's a failure on many many levels. Blaming the strikers isn't going to solve the problems.
ks for Southern Rail because they get paid a set fee for running the franchise. It is the government that gets the profit from that deal (if any) so it actually doenst matter a jot to SR how many staff they have or indeed if they run any services or not as they dont actually lose out. Therefore if there is any drive to keep staffing numbers down or anything like that it is coming from Whitehall.It is correct that blaming the strikers isnt going to solve the problem but with the franchise arrangement it doesnt matter to southern rail how long the strikes go on for as they still get paid. It matters to the government as they want services to be running for profits and votes and it matters to the RMT because as soon as all the trains become driver only then a massive chunk of their reason for being is removed. It is no wonder they are calling for renationalisation because that would strengthen their position further.
The government could fix the issue if they really wanted to by playing hardball and forcing Southern Rail to draw up new contracts and terms and conditions for all staff and then dismissing all of them and re-engaging them and paying settlement agreements to those who do not want to re-engage on their new contracts. The cost of doing so would be less than the lost revenue etc they are facing now and it would chop the unions off at the knees too but from a PR point of view it might not go down so well, apart from with the hundreds of thousands of commuters on the southern rail network who have had to put up with everything.
edited to add - before anyone attempts to assassinate me for being a right wing fascist I dont necessarily agree with the above but it is an answer to the question posed in the OP
There are a lot of things that probably need discussion in here.
The safety issue is a real one. The rail safety standards are set by what is essentially a vested interest old boys club ... which includes such worthies as the current chief exec of Govia Thameslink, the parent company of Southern. Who, it might be argued, is unlikely to stand up for the on-train guard being an essential safety measure when he is committed to saving money by doing away with them.
DOO was introduced at the end of the the era of slam-door stock, when the brave new world of not having pasengers responsible for their own egress on and off trains coincided with a safety culture of protecting every idiot from themselves, no matter what. It was (arguably) appropriate for the times. It (more strongly arguably) is no longer appropriate for the greatly increased stock lengths and exponentially more crowded railway of today. Yes, the driver has in-cab monitors that offer a view of the train whilst the doors are open... BUT once a train begins to move away from the stopping point, the driver has no means of viewing the train at all... most modern traction does not even offer a side window that can be looked out of in the cab (as was the case on the intial classes of train used in DOO work). Were someone in danger on the train/platform interface, the first the driver would know of this would be at the next stop when they hose that poor unfortunate off the side of the train
How about a nice conspiracy theory? DOO 12-car traction was introduced on Thameslink via a convenient back door. At the time Thameslink was part of First group, as was GN. Because GN ran "12 car DOO" it was very hard for the unions to argue against its introduction on Thameslink. This was despite the fact that the GN 12-car DOO was essentially a stock relocation excercise ... being the most expedient means of moving units into London for the evening peak, where they could then be split to form several services. The 12-car DOO made extremely limited stops at fully staffed stations at a sparse time of day for passenger volume and in the opposite direction of primary travel. Thameslink 12-car DOO, conversely, make for some of the most intensive stopping patterns on mainline services in the country, with some of the highest density of passenger numbers and at stations with minimal platform staff and often completely unstaffed. There is plenty to suggest that much of GTR's motivation when bidding for the Thameslink franchise was in order to obtain a setup already reliant of long-formatiomn DOO work which could then be extended to its other franchises (Southern) in the same way that the GN method had been extended to Thameslink when it was First Group parented. Southern has even fewer suitable routes and infrastructure than Thameslink for such an operational method, of course, and added the complication of having an existing double-manning system with guards to further complicate matters.
No publicly-accountable service ought to be permitted to operate purely on goodwill. Overtime is exactly that; extra to contracted hours and obligations. No-one has to work it, and ought not be pressurised to do so. It is a fundamental tenet of ASLEF's ethos that overtime is only sanctioned at depots where the company is committed to training new staff... thus ensuring the robustness of he driving grade whilst alos redressing the staffing imbalance. In the case of Southern, the reluctance of staff (drivers as well as guards) to work overtime is not so much anything to do with union doctrine but more that staff morale is so low that many choose not to be at work any more than they absolutely have to. The company is culpable for running staffing levels at the absolute minimum, as alread pointed out, because it is cheaper to pay overtime than to pay to train a new incumbent, pay their pension contributions, sick leave, etcetera.
Speaking of which... it takes anywhere between a year and eighteen months to train a new driver, and this applies to applicants new to the industry just as much as those transferring from another railway role, such as guards. Guards are already trained as safety critical in railway rules, but much of this is not transferable to a driving role. In addition, many of them have no desire or wish to change to a different job (Why should they?). In addition to classroom training, a trainee driver relies on the tutelage of a driver instructor... who obviously is a driver themselves. The driver instructor becomes responsible for the trainee's actions (so if the trainee makes a mistake, the driver instructor will be held responsible for the consequences which might lead to disciplinary action or in extreme cases, dismissal) and also takes on a good amount of paperwork and additional investiture of time. The financial reward for this is very minimal (the old cliche was "train a driver for a fiver" because that was about the weekly pay enhancement) so anyone becoming a driver instructor is doing it for their own reasons and must be a self-motivated and very stoic person, not through company management or sense of reward. Perhaps no surprise, then, that they are few and far between and the number of trainees usually outweighs the number of trainers, thus greatly increasing the gestation period for newly-qualified drivers. It also means that beyond the actual initial hiring of trainee drivers, the managing company actually have little or no control over how quickly or in what numbers trainees come to full competency!
Disabled travellers are an unaffordable luxury and ought to be transported by cabs? Really? Is it 1890 all over again? They are, of course, entitled by the bill of human rights to not be put at any disadvantage simply on the terms of their disability and surely that is the absolute least any human being should expect in a modern civilised society? Trains are all designed from scratch with disabled accommodation in mind ...and have been for decades... so it seems hard to argue that any disabled passengers ought to be expected not to avail themslves of this service simply because the company are unwilling to pay staff members to assist them.
A lot of stock is made of union militancy and staff indifference to passenger suffering. This is absolutely not the case. The unions are attempting to protect the interests, the terms and conditions, of their membership... this is what unions are for... and the safety interests of the paying public. The staff on the railway are generally well-motivated and professional beyond any management-imposed regime and the only reason the railway works even as well as it currently does is due to the diligence of staff and their willingness to go the extra mile to satisfy customers. This dispute is concentrated in the South-East of England; probably the most conservative (with a small "c") as well as Conservative part of the country. People in this area are not the ravening union-controlled leftist disruptive anarchists that they are portrayed as in the media. They are hardworking people with mortgages, families to support and a livelihood to defend, just like any other demographic in society. They do NOT want to strike, cost themselves money and jeapordise their own security just for the sake of it. They do it simply because their workplace has become so toxic and threatened a place to be that they see no other choice than to take this most drastic and unwelcome of actions to protect everything they hold dear
The safety issue is a real one. The rail safety standards are set by what is essentially a vested interest old boys club ... which includes such worthies as the current chief exec of Govia Thameslink, the parent company of Southern. Who, it might be argued, is unlikely to stand up for the on-train guard being an essential safety measure when he is committed to saving money by doing away with them.
DOO was introduced at the end of the the era of slam-door stock, when the brave new world of not having pasengers responsible for their own egress on and off trains coincided with a safety culture of protecting every idiot from themselves, no matter what. It was (arguably) appropriate for the times. It (more strongly arguably) is no longer appropriate for the greatly increased stock lengths and exponentially more crowded railway of today. Yes, the driver has in-cab monitors that offer a view of the train whilst the doors are open... BUT once a train begins to move away from the stopping point, the driver has no means of viewing the train at all... most modern traction does not even offer a side window that can be looked out of in the cab (as was the case on the intial classes of train used in DOO work). Were someone in danger on the train/platform interface, the first the driver would know of this would be at the next stop when they hose that poor unfortunate off the side of the train
How about a nice conspiracy theory? DOO 12-car traction was introduced on Thameslink via a convenient back door. At the time Thameslink was part of First group, as was GN. Because GN ran "12 car DOO" it was very hard for the unions to argue against its introduction on Thameslink. This was despite the fact that the GN 12-car DOO was essentially a stock relocation excercise ... being the most expedient means of moving units into London for the evening peak, where they could then be split to form several services. The 12-car DOO made extremely limited stops at fully staffed stations at a sparse time of day for passenger volume and in the opposite direction of primary travel. Thameslink 12-car DOO, conversely, make for some of the most intensive stopping patterns on mainline services in the country, with some of the highest density of passenger numbers and at stations with minimal platform staff and often completely unstaffed. There is plenty to suggest that much of GTR's motivation when bidding for the Thameslink franchise was in order to obtain a setup already reliant of long-formatiomn DOO work which could then be extended to its other franchises (Southern) in the same way that the GN method had been extended to Thameslink when it was First Group parented. Southern has even fewer suitable routes and infrastructure than Thameslink for such an operational method, of course, and added the complication of having an existing double-manning system with guards to further complicate matters.
No publicly-accountable service ought to be permitted to operate purely on goodwill. Overtime is exactly that; extra to contracted hours and obligations. No-one has to work it, and ought not be pressurised to do so. It is a fundamental tenet of ASLEF's ethos that overtime is only sanctioned at depots where the company is committed to training new staff... thus ensuring the robustness of he driving grade whilst alos redressing the staffing imbalance. In the case of Southern, the reluctance of staff (drivers as well as guards) to work overtime is not so much anything to do with union doctrine but more that staff morale is so low that many choose not to be at work any more than they absolutely have to. The company is culpable for running staffing levels at the absolute minimum, as alread pointed out, because it is cheaper to pay overtime than to pay to train a new incumbent, pay their pension contributions, sick leave, etcetera.
Speaking of which... it takes anywhere between a year and eighteen months to train a new driver, and this applies to applicants new to the industry just as much as those transferring from another railway role, such as guards. Guards are already trained as safety critical in railway rules, but much of this is not transferable to a driving role. In addition, many of them have no desire or wish to change to a different job (Why should they?). In addition to classroom training, a trainee driver relies on the tutelage of a driver instructor... who obviously is a driver themselves. The driver instructor becomes responsible for the trainee's actions (so if the trainee makes a mistake, the driver instructor will be held responsible for the consequences which might lead to disciplinary action or in extreme cases, dismissal) and also takes on a good amount of paperwork and additional investiture of time. The financial reward for this is very minimal (the old cliche was "train a driver for a fiver" because that was about the weekly pay enhancement) so anyone becoming a driver instructor is doing it for their own reasons and must be a self-motivated and very stoic person, not through company management or sense of reward. Perhaps no surprise, then, that they are few and far between and the number of trainees usually outweighs the number of trainers, thus greatly increasing the gestation period for newly-qualified drivers. It also means that beyond the actual initial hiring of trainee drivers, the managing company actually have little or no control over how quickly or in what numbers trainees come to full competency!
Disabled travellers are an unaffordable luxury and ought to be transported by cabs? Really? Is it 1890 all over again? They are, of course, entitled by the bill of human rights to not be put at any disadvantage simply on the terms of their disability and surely that is the absolute least any human being should expect in a modern civilised society? Trains are all designed from scratch with disabled accommodation in mind ...and have been for decades... so it seems hard to argue that any disabled passengers ought to be expected not to avail themslves of this service simply because the company are unwilling to pay staff members to assist them.
A lot of stock is made of union militancy and staff indifference to passenger suffering. This is absolutely not the case. The unions are attempting to protect the interests, the terms and conditions, of their membership... this is what unions are for... and the safety interests of the paying public. The staff on the railway are generally well-motivated and professional beyond any management-imposed regime and the only reason the railway works even as well as it currently does is due to the diligence of staff and their willingness to go the extra mile to satisfy customers. This dispute is concentrated in the South-East of England; probably the most conservative (with a small "c") as well as Conservative part of the country. People in this area are not the ravening union-controlled leftist disruptive anarchists that they are portrayed as in the media. They are hardworking people with mortgages, families to support and a livelihood to defend, just like any other demographic in society. They do NOT want to strike, cost themselves money and jeapordise their own security just for the sake of it. They do it simply because their workplace has become so toxic and threatened a place to be that they see no other choice than to take this most drastic and unwelcome of actions to protect everything they hold dear
genuine question...
I understand that Southern Rails franchise is up in 2021 or around then. What would stop the government from stating that from the start of that franchise the trains had to be driver only and just tolerating the current conductor riding trains that we have now until that point? Surely the cost of everything that is going on far outweighs any savings that would be made from driver only and they would be better off just insisting on it from next franchise?
I understand that Southern Rails franchise is up in 2021 or around then. What would stop the government from stating that from the start of that franchise the trains had to be driver only and just tolerating the current conductor riding trains that we have now until that point? Surely the cost of everything that is going on far outweighs any savings that would be made from driver only and they would be better off just insisting on it from next franchise?
craigjm said:
Thing is that is complete bks for Southern Rail because they get paid a set fee for running the franchise. It is the government that gets the profit from that deal (if any) so it actually doenst matter a jot to SR how many staff they have or indeed if they run any services or not as they dont actually lose out. Therefore if there is any drive to keep staffing numbers down or anything like that it is coming from Whitehall.
It is correct that blaming the strikers isnt going to solve the problem but with the franchise arrangement it doesnt matter to southern rail how long the strikes go on for as they still get paid. It matters to the government as they want services to be running for profits and votes and it matters to the RMT because as soon as all the trains become driver only then a massive chunk of their reason for being is removed. It is no wonder they are calling for renationalisation because that would strengthen their position further.
The government could fix the issue if they really wanted to by playing hardball and forcing Southern Rail to draw up new contracts and terms and conditions for all staff and then dismissing all of them and re-engaging them and paying settlement agreements to those who do not want to re-engage on their new contracts. The cost of doing so would be less than the lost revenue etc they are facing now and it would chop the unions off at the knees too but from a PR point of view it might not go down so well, apart from with the hundreds of thousands of commuters on the southern rail network who have had to put up with everything.
edited to add - before anyone attempts to assassinate me for being a right wing fascist I dont necessarily agree with the above but it is an answer to the question posed in the OP
bks for Southern Rail because they get paid a set fee for running the franchise. It is the government that gets the profit from that deal (if any) so it actually doenst matter a jot to SR how many staff they have or indeed if they run any services or not as they dont actually lose out. Therefore if there is any drive to keep staffing numbers down or anything like that it is coming from Whitehall.It is correct that blaming the strikers isnt going to solve the problem but with the franchise arrangement it doesnt matter to southern rail how long the strikes go on for as they still get paid. It matters to the government as they want services to be running for profits and votes and it matters to the RMT because as soon as all the trains become driver only then a massive chunk of their reason for being is removed. It is no wonder they are calling for renationalisation because that would strengthen their position further.
The government could fix the issue if they really wanted to by playing hardball and forcing Southern Rail to draw up new contracts and terms and conditions for all staff and then dismissing all of them and re-engaging them and paying settlement agreements to those who do not want to re-engage on their new contracts. The cost of doing so would be less than the lost revenue etc they are facing now and it would chop the unions off at the knees too but from a PR point of view it might not go down so well, apart from with the hundreds of thousands of commuters on the southern rail network who have had to put up with everything.
edited to add - before anyone attempts to assassinate me for being a right wing fascist I dont necessarily agree with the above but it is an answer to the question posed in the OP
ks you say?Tell me, who pays the costs for extra recruitment, training and salaries for more drivers that are obviously required?
I'd guess it's SR, giving them a great incentive to rely heavily on overtime.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Not sure where you get your information from but from personal experience of the industry over almost 30 years your points 1 and 2 are wrong if you're talking about ASLEF represented drivers."Many unions" means nothing - ASLEF represent the vast majority of drivers, RMT a tiny percentage - how long has two meant many?
Take this any way you like but you sound like a frustrated wannabe from one of those god awful spotters websites - please tell me I'm wrong and I've misread your post
Nik da Greek said:
There are a lot of things that probably need discussion in here.
The safety issue is a real one. The rail safety standards are set by what is essentially a vested interest old boys club ... which includes such worthies as the current chief exec of Govia Thameslink, the parent company of Southern. Who, it might be argued, is unlikely to stand up for the on-train guard being an essential safety measure when he is committed to saving money by doing away with them.
DOO was introduced at the end of the the era of slam-door stock, when the brave new world of not having pasengers responsible for their own egress on and off trains coincided with a safety culture of protecting every idiot from themselves, no matter what. It was (arguably) appropriate for the times. It (more strongly arguably) is no longer appropriate for the greatly increased stock lengths and exponentially more crowded railway of today. Yes, the driver has in-cab monitors that offer a view of the train whilst the doors are open... BUT once a train begins to move away from the stopping point, the driver has no means of viewing the train at all... most modern traction does not even offer a side window that can be looked out of in the cab (as was the case on the intial classes of train used in DOO work). Were someone in danger on the train/platform interface, the first the driver would know of this would be at the next stop when they hose that poor unfortunate off the side of the train
How about a nice conspiracy theory? DOO 12-car traction was introduced on Thameslink via a convenient back door. At the time Thameslink was part of First group, as was GN. Because GN ran "12 car DOO" it was very hard for the unions to argue against its introduction on Thameslink. This was despite the fact that the GN 12-car DOO was essentially a stock relocation excercise ... being the most expedient means of moving units into London for the evening peak, where they could then be split to form several services. The 12-car DOO made extremely limited stops at fully staffed stations at a sparse time of day for passenger volume and in the opposite direction of primary travel. Thameslink 12-car DOO, conversely, make for some of the most intensive stopping patterns on mainline services in the country, with some of the highest density of passenger numbers and at stations with minimal platform staff and often completely unstaffed. There is plenty to suggest that much of GTR's motivation when bidding for the Thameslink franchise was in order to obtain a setup already reliant of long-formatiomn DOO work which could then be extended to its other franchises (Southern) in the same way that the GN method had been extended to Thameslink when it was First Group parented. Southern has even fewer suitable routes and infrastructure than Thameslink for such an operational method, of course, and added the complication of having an existing double-manning system with guards to further complicate matters.
No publicly-accountable service ought to be permitted to operate purely on goodwill. Overtime is exactly that; extra to contracted hours and obligations. No-one has to work it, and ought not be pressurised to do so. It is a fundamental tenet of ASLEF's ethos that overtime is only sanctioned at depots where the company is committed to training new staff... thus ensuring the robustness of he driving grade whilst alos redressing the staffing imbalance. In the case of Southern, the reluctance of staff (drivers as well as guards) to work overtime is not so much anything to do with union doctrine but more that staff morale is so low that many choose not to be at work any more than they absolutely have to. The company is culpable for running staffing levels at the absolute minimum, as alread pointed out, because it is cheaper to pay overtime than to pay to train a new incumbent, pay their pension contributions, sick leave, etcetera.
Speaking of which... it takes anywhere between a year and eighteen months to train a new driver, and this applies to applicants new to the industry just as much as those transferring from another railway role, such as guards. Guards are already trained as safety critical in railway rules, but much of this is not transferable to a driving role. In addition, many of them have no desire or wish to change to a different job (Why should they?). In addition to classroom training, a trainee driver relies on the tutelage of a driver instructor... who obviously is a driver themselves. The driver instructor becomes responsible for the trainee's actions (so if the trainee makes a mistake, the driver instructor will be held responsible for the consequences which might lead to disciplinary action or in extreme cases, dismissal) and also takes on a good amount of paperwork and additional investiture of time. The financial reward for this is very minimal (the old cliche was "train a driver for a fiver" because that was about the weekly pay enhancement) so anyone becoming a driver instructor is doing it for their own reasons and must be a self-motivated and very stoic person, not through company management or sense of reward. Perhaps no surprise, then, that they are few and far between and the number of trainees usually outweighs the number of trainers, thus greatly increasing the gestation period for newly-qualified drivers. It also means that beyond the actual initial hiring of trainee drivers, the managing company actually have little or no control over how quickly or in what numbers trainees come to full competency!
Disabled travellers are an unaffordable luxury and ought to be transported by cabs? Really? Is it 1890 all over again? They are, of course, entitled by the bill of human rights to not be put at any disadvantage simply on the terms of their disability and surely that is the absolute least any human being should expect in a modern civilised society? Trains are all designed from scratch with disabled accommodation in mind ...and have been for decades... so it seems hard to argue that any disabled passengers ought to be expected not to avail themslves of this service simply because the company are unwilling to pay staff members to assist them.
A lot of stock is made of union militancy and staff indifference to passenger suffering. This is absolutely not the case. The unions are attempting to protect the interests, the terms and conditions, of their membership... this is what unions are for... and the safety interests of the paying public. The staff on the railway are generally well-motivated and professional beyond any management-imposed regime and the only reason the railway works even as well as it currently does is due to the diligence of staff and their willingness to go the extra mile to satisfy customers. This dispute is concentrated in the South-East of England; probably the most conservative (with a small "c") as well as Conservative part of the country. People in this area are not the ravening union-controlled leftist disruptive anarchists that they are portrayed as in the media. They are hardworking people with mortgages, families to support and a livelihood to defend, just like any other demographic in society. They do NOT want to strike, cost themselves money and jeapordise their own security just for the sake of it. They do it simply because their workplace has become so toxic and threatened a place to be that they see no other choice than to take this most drastic and unwelcome of actions to protect everything they hold dear
I recognise that a lot of this is factual, and adds some background to the current situation. You've spent a lot of time on various issues, but very little on safety- what ASLEF now claims to be their key concern. I struggle to see how safety can be the number one concern when independent organisations have declared DOO safe, they even had someone on the BBC News confirming it. Surely, in our very H&S culture nowadays, if it hadn't been proved safe to operate DOO then Thameslink wouldn't have been running 12-coach trains from Brighton, through the centre of London, as DOO for many years ?The safety issue is a real one. The rail safety standards are set by what is essentially a vested interest old boys club ... which includes such worthies as the current chief exec of Govia Thameslink, the parent company of Southern. Who, it might be argued, is unlikely to stand up for the on-train guard being an essential safety measure when he is committed to saving money by doing away with them.
DOO was introduced at the end of the the era of slam-door stock, when the brave new world of not having pasengers responsible for their own egress on and off trains coincided with a safety culture of protecting every idiot from themselves, no matter what. It was (arguably) appropriate for the times. It (more strongly arguably) is no longer appropriate for the greatly increased stock lengths and exponentially more crowded railway of today. Yes, the driver has in-cab monitors that offer a view of the train whilst the doors are open... BUT once a train begins to move away from the stopping point, the driver has no means of viewing the train at all... most modern traction does not even offer a side window that can be looked out of in the cab (as was the case on the intial classes of train used in DOO work). Were someone in danger on the train/platform interface, the first the driver would know of this would be at the next stop when they hose that poor unfortunate off the side of the train
How about a nice conspiracy theory? DOO 12-car traction was introduced on Thameslink via a convenient back door. At the time Thameslink was part of First group, as was GN. Because GN ran "12 car DOO" it was very hard for the unions to argue against its introduction on Thameslink. This was despite the fact that the GN 12-car DOO was essentially a stock relocation excercise ... being the most expedient means of moving units into London for the evening peak, where they could then be split to form several services. The 12-car DOO made extremely limited stops at fully staffed stations at a sparse time of day for passenger volume and in the opposite direction of primary travel. Thameslink 12-car DOO, conversely, make for some of the most intensive stopping patterns on mainline services in the country, with some of the highest density of passenger numbers and at stations with minimal platform staff and often completely unstaffed. There is plenty to suggest that much of GTR's motivation when bidding for the Thameslink franchise was in order to obtain a setup already reliant of long-formatiomn DOO work which could then be extended to its other franchises (Southern) in the same way that the GN method had been extended to Thameslink when it was First Group parented. Southern has even fewer suitable routes and infrastructure than Thameslink for such an operational method, of course, and added the complication of having an existing double-manning system with guards to further complicate matters.
No publicly-accountable service ought to be permitted to operate purely on goodwill. Overtime is exactly that; extra to contracted hours and obligations. No-one has to work it, and ought not be pressurised to do so. It is a fundamental tenet of ASLEF's ethos that overtime is only sanctioned at depots where the company is committed to training new staff... thus ensuring the robustness of he driving grade whilst alos redressing the staffing imbalance. In the case of Southern, the reluctance of staff (drivers as well as guards) to work overtime is not so much anything to do with union doctrine but more that staff morale is so low that many choose not to be at work any more than they absolutely have to. The company is culpable for running staffing levels at the absolute minimum, as alread pointed out, because it is cheaper to pay overtime than to pay to train a new incumbent, pay their pension contributions, sick leave, etcetera.
Speaking of which... it takes anywhere between a year and eighteen months to train a new driver, and this applies to applicants new to the industry just as much as those transferring from another railway role, such as guards. Guards are already trained as safety critical in railway rules, but much of this is not transferable to a driving role. In addition, many of them have no desire or wish to change to a different job (Why should they?). In addition to classroom training, a trainee driver relies on the tutelage of a driver instructor... who obviously is a driver themselves. The driver instructor becomes responsible for the trainee's actions (so if the trainee makes a mistake, the driver instructor will be held responsible for the consequences which might lead to disciplinary action or in extreme cases, dismissal) and also takes on a good amount of paperwork and additional investiture of time. The financial reward for this is very minimal (the old cliche was "train a driver for a fiver" because that was about the weekly pay enhancement) so anyone becoming a driver instructor is doing it for their own reasons and must be a self-motivated and very stoic person, not through company management or sense of reward. Perhaps no surprise, then, that they are few and far between and the number of trainees usually outweighs the number of trainers, thus greatly increasing the gestation period for newly-qualified drivers. It also means that beyond the actual initial hiring of trainee drivers, the managing company actually have little or no control over how quickly or in what numbers trainees come to full competency!
Disabled travellers are an unaffordable luxury and ought to be transported by cabs? Really? Is it 1890 all over again? They are, of course, entitled by the bill of human rights to not be put at any disadvantage simply on the terms of their disability and surely that is the absolute least any human being should expect in a modern civilised society? Trains are all designed from scratch with disabled accommodation in mind ...and have been for decades... so it seems hard to argue that any disabled passengers ought to be expected not to avail themslves of this service simply because the company are unwilling to pay staff members to assist them.
A lot of stock is made of union militancy and staff indifference to passenger suffering. This is absolutely not the case. The unions are attempting to protect the interests, the terms and conditions, of their membership... this is what unions are for... and the safety interests of the paying public. The staff on the railway are generally well-motivated and professional beyond any management-imposed regime and the only reason the railway works even as well as it currently does is due to the diligence of staff and their willingness to go the extra mile to satisfy customers. This dispute is concentrated in the South-East of England; probably the most conservative (with a small "c") as well as Conservative part of the country. People in this area are not the ravening union-controlled leftist disruptive anarchists that they are portrayed as in the media. They are hardworking people with mortgages, families to support and a livelihood to defend, just like any other demographic in society. They do NOT want to strike, cost themselves money and jeapordise their own security just for the sake of it. They do it simply because their workplace has become so toxic and threatened a place to be that they see no other choice than to take this most drastic and unwelcome of actions to protect everything they hold dear
legzr1 said:
bks you say?
Tell me, who pays the costs for extra recruitment, training and salaries for more drivers that are obviously required?
I'd guess it's SR, giving them a great incentive to rely heavily on overtime.
You do understand that the franchise that southern rail has runs unlike ANY OTHER rail franchise in the UK dont you?ks you say?Tell me, who pays the costs for extra recruitment, training and salaries for more drivers that are obviously required?
I'd guess it's SR, giving them a great incentive to rely heavily on overtime.
Southern Rail get one payment from the government per annum to run the service and then the profit from the fares is given back to the government. None of the other franchises are like that. All of the others mean the profit is taken by the operator which means the cheaper they can run a service the better because its more profit for them.
With the current Southern Rail arrangement they could, if they wanted to, recruit the extra staff required as this would simply lower the return to the government and not impact on what Southern Rail earn at all.
In fact it pays Southern Rail to allow the staff to strike because they run no services and still get paid!
essayer said:
Guys guys guys
I've got it.. perfect solution
REMOVE THE DOORS
No more arguments about who opens/closes doors AND it stops people leaving their Bromptons/children in the vestibules
Anyone got a contact at the DfT??
Back in the days of the slam door stock, the passengers could open and close the doors themselves. Sometimes they did this even before the train was stopped at the station.I've got it.. perfect solution
REMOVE THE DOORS
No more arguments about who opens/closes doors AND it stops people leaving their Bromptons/children in the vestibules
Anyone got a contact at the DfT??
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Is that aimed at me? If so, I'm not sure I can offer all the answers but I'll have a go...1. Might well be the case but not on the railways. As I said, ASLEF or RMT have to sanction rest day working on a periodical basis and its based on certain criteria, not the least of which is company commitment to training new staff. Yes, a lot of drivers enjoy (and arguably exploit) overtime but the union can't and doesn't demand a set level of availability of it.
2. The union suggests a complement level for each depot dependant on the amount of work (ie rostered trains) at that depot. It's an advisory/conference thing and ultimately the number of drivers is set by the company after discussion with the Unions; if you have x number of running turns then you need x+1/3rd drivers to accommodate leave, sickness, absence for discipline, etc
3. I guess it depends on how you feel about the "if it saves one life it's worth it" cliche. My personal feeling is that DOO is bucki ng the odds more and more and just because there hasn't... yet... been a poster-boy saftey incident doesn't mean it's not in the post. Until poor old Michael Hodder SPADed SN109 signal (which had been reported as unsafe by many experienced drivers and was not fitted with simple safety systems to mitigate the effects of it being passed at danger) there had never been a Ladbroke Grove rail disaster, for example. If many professional and highly-trained frontline staff are repeatedly saying a practise is unsafe, maybe they ought to be given some credibilty. If the majority of them are saying it, then the "it hasn't happended yet" aspect seems even more like hopes and good fortune
4. I agree with you
5. All of Southern's rolling stock is already disabled-compliant. And whether or not we as individuals think that disabled access is a lot of resource for little demand, the fact remains that the disabled's right to access it... and the companies' obligation to provide it... are enshrined in law.
6. Yes. The way you can tell a driver's still alive is because he's moaning about something. But just because everyone likes a good eeyore about stuff doesn't mean their opinion is always just gripe for the sake of it. And a good screw it might be, but then they've worked bloody hard to get it and don't want to allow any changes that threaten it. This also (IMHO) is a forgivable part of human nature?
It is impossible to create a risk-free transport system. I agree. In fact, I'd go so far as to say if the railway were invented today it'd never be allowed. Can you imagine the pitch in Whitehall? "So, you want to built a system that involves the general public blundering around bucolically inches from a 100mph 400-tonne projectile? Errrr....next!"
Thameslink has always been DOO and the difference there is that introduction of 12-car trains was an extension of an existing working practice, not a total re-purposing of a huge number of staff
Edited by Nik da Greek on Wednesday 14th December 14:49
craigjm said:
You do understand that the franchise that southern rail has runs unlike ANY OTHER rail franchise in the UK dont you?
Southern Rail get one payment from the government per annum to run the service and then the profit from the fares is given back to the government. None of the other franchises are like that. All of the others mean the profit is taken by the operator which means the cheaper they can run a service the better because its more profit for them.
With the current Southern Rail arrangement they could, if they wanted to, recruit the extra staff required as this would simply lower the return to the government and not impact on what Southern Rail earn at all.
In fact it pays Southern Rail to allow the staff to strike because they run no services and still get paid!
I understand perfectly how Southern Rail is run (or not...) thank you very much.Southern Rail get one payment from the government per annum to run the service and then the profit from the fares is given back to the government. None of the other franchises are like that. All of the others mean the profit is taken by the operator which means the cheaper they can run a service the better because its more profit for them.
With the current Southern Rail arrangement they could, if they wanted to, recruit the extra staff required as this would simply lower the return to the government and not impact on what Southern Rail earn at all.
In fact it pays Southern Rail to allow the staff to strike because they run no services and still get paid!
However, you seem to be struggling with the idea of a Government, already on record as spoiling for a fight, interfering and directing the way things go at SR.
You honestly believe the Tories and Grayling would ever allow them to recruit more staff?
Of course they wouldn't - this is their test case and there's miserable times ahead for those paying the bills.
legzr1 said:
I understand perfectly how Southern Rail is run (or not...) thank you very much.
However, you seem to be struggling with the idea of a Government, already on record as spoiling for a fight, interfering and directing the way things go at SR.
You honestly believe the Tories and Grayling would ever allow them to recruit more staff?
Of course they wouldn't - this is their test case and there's miserable times ahead for those paying the bills.
......but I suppose that ASLEF promising '10 years of strikes' wasn't spoiling for a fight ?However, you seem to be struggling with the idea of a Government, already on record as spoiling for a fight, interfering and directing the way things go at SR.
You honestly believe the Tories and Grayling would ever allow them to recruit more staff?
Of course they wouldn't - this is their test case and there's miserable times ahead for those paying the bills.
dtmpower said:
How I'd resolve things.
1. Advertise all Southern drivers / guards jobs in national press
2. Sack anyone who fails to turn up to work after a week of adverts.
Brilliant plan. Presumably the public would be more than happy to wait the ensuing one and a half to two years for a train while you trained up all the new staff to replace those you'd just sacked1. Advertise all Southern drivers / guards jobs in national press
2. Sack anyone who fails to turn up to work after a week of adverts.
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