Cost of Living Crisis

[MingtheMerciless]

As a rail worker I will add that the press and Govt seem to be deliberately missing the changes to T's & C's NR wish to implement.

Rostering staff up to 39 weeks of nights a year.
Rostering staff up to 62 weekend shifts a year.
Rosters to be implemented/designed by management with 1 day off between shift segments if management wish.
48hrs notice of 2hr change to start or finish of shift.
Rostered OT.
Removal of the operatives role and (re)creation of assistant tech role. Asst Techs and Techs to be rostered at whim of roster clerk and manager and sent all over the route (rather than start at a "home" depot) where works demands on their own time and fuel costs. Quite how this fits in with NR's new fatigue "management" policy I don't know.

So a large change to working patterns and a massive impact on work/life balance.

Cross Boundary working.

Now for those of you that don't work on the track, cross boundary working and working an area you don't know are a recipe for accidents as you don't have the local geographical/layout knowledge of the area. And if you think that you'll be allowed the shift prior to inspect where you'll be working to make sure you're happy with the safety arrangements............

There's more but this is only what I've gleaned from colleagues as I'm Ops rather than Maintenance.

[MrLongbeard]

Is anyone on here actually affected by a rail strike?
It would be a 4 mile walk (or taxi ride) and a 20 minute train journey for me to get to work, or I can do the 15 minute drive I'm doing now, ironic when we've got 3 rail freight terminals at work.

2 Hour drive, in comfort, at a cost of £12.50
Or a 4 hour public transport journey, 1.5 hours on buses, 2 hours on a couple of trains, 30 minutes walking, for a cost of a small second mortgage I don't doubt, and gets me to work over 2 hours late.

Yeah, but nah, they can walk out and stay out for me

[Count Steer]

As a rail worker I will add that the press and Govt seem to be deliberately missing the changes to T's & C's NR wish to implement.

R4 was at it this am on the Today Programme. 'Ah yes but the ambulance crews have had 8% over the last x years'. No reference to what they had to do to get it. They're not exactly van drivers and stretcher bearers any more. Sometimes you're as well set in the ambulance as you are in A&E, they just don't have access to all the kit.

Then they tried to suggest that striking and only doing life and death emergencies would increase the queues at the hospitals.

(So it has thrown the local health centre into meltdown - by lunchtime they were sending out texts - ''Don't come here, don't phone us, we're switching the phones off, call 111 or go to A&E').

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah bollox to the sudden imposition of night shifts etc.

[mangocrazy]

Have a look at the small print in the offer made to the Rail unions and ask yourself if you'd sign up to these proposals:

These proposals set out a two-year pay package which provides 4% increases for years 2022 & 2023. These are way below the current and predicted future rates of inflation and equate to a 20% pay cut.

A conditional no compulsory redundancy commitment is set out, but only until 1st April 2024.

The proposals are also conditional on your union accepting the following:

That all Workforce Changes are accepted without reservation or industrial action;
Closure of all ticket offices and displacement of all retail staff;
Creation of a new multi-skilled station grades;
A mass job severance programme;
Driver-Only Operation of trains in all companies and on all passenger services;
New arrangements for mandatory Sunday working;
A review of all On-Train Catering services leading to cutbacks in provision and jobs;
Review of Fleet grades’ working practices and depot driving;
Flexible working contracts, working and rosters;
Mandatory adoption of new technology with no payment;
New Attendance Management scheme;
Review of Stood Off arrangements;
New annual leave and sick pay arrangements.

 Your union’s National Executive Committee is of the view that these proposals are not acceptable and believe that the RDG knew this was the case when they made the proposals. Therefore, your NEC has instructed me to immediately inform the RDG of this Union’s rejection of the proposals and to demand an urgent meeting with the RDG tomorrow (Monday 5th December), with this matter to be placed back before this NEC immediately following that meeting.

Source: https://www.left-horizons.com/2022/12/0 ... onditions/

This seemed to get missed at the first time of posting, so giving it a bump.

[Pirahna]

This seemed to get missed at the first time of posting, so giving it a bump.

Back in the mists of time (circa 1984) London Underground were in negotiation with the unions re the usual pay and conditions. In a very uncharacteristic fuck up the senior management negotiator was off on hols so the unions were negotiating with a junior, who crucially for the unions had the power to sign off on deals. My holidays went from 4 to 8 weeks, plus there was a weird bit nobody fully understood that if you worked the day before or the day after a bank holiday it counted as working the bank holiday itself. If you did 3 of these days in a year you got another weeks paid holiday. The holidays were allocated in four periods, so if you changed your dates for the end of one period and the start of another you got a month off. The start and end periods were always outside school holidays so no problem changing. I used to do a month skiing and a month cycle tour in Europe. As part of the deal our pay got a decent raise too. My last year as a driver was 1989 and I earned £30k, which wasn't too shabby. The pay rise was to sweeten the one man trains that were being introduced.

I've no idea what goes on now, Didge might be able to shed some light on it if he ever reads this, he retired from the Tubes not that long ago.

[Felix]

Trains are shit. I would rather take the train if going into Edinburgh as 9 times out of 10 we are going on for a meal and both of us can drink but the last one home is 10:35 so no late night dancing and of late they are striking at weekends. I would never dream of taking one much further afield for pleasure as they are getting stupidly expensive and you can get deals but you need to be looking around online. Why not just have one sensible pricing? In the past 10 years i must have took a train south 4 times and its all been one way to but a car/van