Christmas train strikes

[Darthwazette]

AIBU to wish the train strike situation could just be sorted out?

Theyve just announced strikes right over Christmas. My family were coming to stay with me and now they can’t. I’ve had to cancel so many visits and trips since these strikes began. I wish they’d just reach an agreement already.

Every day of the week between Wednesday 6th and Sunday 17th July, passenger numbers were at 90-93% of pre-Covid levels. Similar figures were achieved in June when passenger numbers were at 90-93% of pre-Covid levels every single day between 10th and 20th June.

www.railadvent.co.uk/2022/07/rail-passenger-numbers-over-90-of-pre-pandemic-levels.html

I'm not convinced trains are at their busiest between Christmas and New Year. it would be interesting to see some figures.

Investment in public transport and the staff that run it seems like a no brainer for me. Unmanned stations will rule out public transport for the disabled.

@Iamthewombat Its a thread about the strike and the reason for that strike is primarily pay... no?
OR do you think they should get a inflation beating rise in return for lay offs?

Demand is rising, it shrank during CV but is now increasing, WFH is limited and nothing like it used to be.. % will continue to fall

Trains need a min number of staff to keep them safe, that number doesn't really change if you have slightly less passengers, a well run railway should be increasing passenger numbers as running a car is now so expensive.

In an industry that needs huge subsidy.. why should they also being making any dividend pay outs? esp to overseas operators.... seems perverse to me and certainly doesn't seem to be a capitalist model i ve every heard off.

@Notonthestairs I linked to these newer numbers yesterday ignored by the Tory rail & union bashers.

Quarterly statistics are better than weekly. The 93% is misleading.

dataportal.orr.gov.uk/statistics/usage/passenger-rail-usage/

A total of 332 million rail passenger journeys were made in Great Britain in the latest quarter (1 April to 30 June 2022). This equates to 75.8% of the 437 million journeys in the same quarter three years ago (pre-pandemic).

Total passenger revenue was £2.1 billion in the latest quarter. This equates to 70.4% of the £3.0 billion three years ago

You’re the gift that keeps on giving.

What you are saying is illogical.. according to you strikes at xmas will wreck public support? So why would the unions choose this time period then?

The unions don’t really care about having the support of the public. We’ve been repeatedly told on this thread that the purpose of strikes is to cause maximum disruption for the public. That’s an attempt to force the government’s hand. Claiming that the public support your actions is a PR strategy, nothing more. The public can’t (and probably wouldn’t, when it comes down to it) give the unions what they want.

Govt has chosen not to settle

Why is that, do you think? Because they are a load of meanies? Or because, for example, the unions’ demands are unaffordable and impractical? And that ordinary people, taxpayers, will be asked to pay for it?

I don't think UK pension funds are going to have too much of their diversified funds in Dutch Govt and German industry... do you?

Ordinary people live in Germany and the Netherlands as well, you know. I think that you misread what I said. I said that dividends are mostly paid to pension funds. Not that shares in the TOCs are mostly held by pension funds. You complained about dividends being ‘creamed off’. I asked you to explain the basis on which you assert that dividends paid by TOCs are excessive. You haven’t responded.

Pensions tend to have large bond/Gilt holdings and who wrecked them?

Do you really want to get into this? OK. Why were central bank base rates cut to the bone during the credit crunch? Remember that? Why was quantitative easing expanded during that period? Do you realise that both of these things drive gilt and bond yields down?

The credit crunch was fundamentally caused by reckless lending to buy property, in the US and worldwide. That those loans were later diced up, packaged and sold as dodgy derivatives doesn’t alter the root cause. There’s no reckless lending without the desire for reckless borrowing. So before you jump in and blame ‘the government’ and/or ‘the bankers’, think about whether you yourself might have had a part in driving down interest rates and hence gilt yields. Something to consider when you’re rejoicing over your low mortgage rate, isn’t it?

If demand still outstrips supply, then you should not be cutting supply. Trains in the North are full and standing. Many stations are already unmanned but that doesn't generally matter because all trains have guards, thus ensuring that disabled passengers still have access and ensuring that revenue is collected, even from passengers joining at stations where there is no opportunity to pay with cash.

Staff would accept a real terms pay cut - even the 4+4% offer represents a substantial cut in real terms but would probably be accepted on its own. The government has deliberately added a long list of strings to the no-strings offer that RDG wanted to make, knowing full well that such conditions would never be accepted, just so it can get a few Daily Mail headlines along the lines of "Evil Marxist firebrand overpaid train drivers reject 8% offer" which wouldn't even qualify as a half-truth.

If pay must be linked to useage why are the rail CEO's receiving wage increases?

"Staff would accept a real terms pay cut - even the 4+4% offer represents a substantial cut in real terms but would probably be accepted on its own. The government has deliberately added a long list of strings to the no-strings offer that RDG wanted to make, knowing full well that such conditions would never be accepted, just so it can get a few Daily Mail headlines along the lines of "Evil Marxist firebrand overpaid train drivers reject 8% offer" which wouldn't even qualify as a half-truth."

How does the Government get to stipulate terms and not play a part in negotiations to remedy the situation?

Are you really resorting to this? Yes, we’re harming the economy but at least we’re mot as bad as HER?

Enjoy your ‘maximum impact’ and ‘media coverage’. It’s not going to convince me to support you when it comes with misery and disruption for ordinary people at Christmas.

It's all a game about manipulating public perception.

Lynch explained precisely why the strikes had to happen when they will - It is because new terms and conditions are being imposed on the 15th December, which because of the way current contracts are set up means that if the staff continue to work, they are implicitly accepting the new terms and are then bound by them.

It was all there on the early live interview yesterday morning, funnily enough, edited out of every subsequent replay throughout the day...

The Christmas strikes will cost the unions a lot of public support.

This was supposed to be a normal Christmas, after the disruption of the last few years and spoiling it will diminish support for them .

Not that they care.

“Strikes should only happen when they effect absolutely no-one, so no-one cares or notices them”

Well, they have been striking for a while. It’s not brought the desired effect, because of WFH, even though it affects many, so they have escalated and want to ruin Christmas.

Are they saying the station will be unstaffed or are they closing ticket offices? It's two different things. Surely if there is hardly anyone at the ticket office buying a ticket it is better to have a 'roving' person who can sell tickets on a handheld unit or answer queries at the ticket barrier.

Many stations don't have staff other than ticket office, some stations are unmanned. What will happen is more stations will have less staff. However you dress it up, that is not a good thing for the travelling public.

Once more, nobody has said that pay should be linked to usage. It’s manning levels that need to be linked to usage. For obvious reasons.

I’m not sure why rail CEOs ‘ pay is being brought into the debate. If the CEO didn’t get a pay rise, and instead it was distributed amongst the employees,how much do you think they’d get, each?

I don’t know if having fewer staff is going be bad.

whenever I travel, and I travel a lot, I see staff milling around, looking at their phones, not doing much.

They can never answer a question or help if you report something. They just stand there, pretending to be busy.

DS has booked trains for 24th morning and 27th afternoon, if they do strike more and extend it we can drive him instead but I think I am right in thinking they have to give two weeks notice of strikes so we should be sure by the weekend

Have we learnt nothing from the Airlines who laid off workers, when usage low... passenger numbers picked up and they had no staff... & pay is a separate issue from demand.

This. During the pandemic Manchester Airport laid off loads whereas Liverpool Airport did its best to keep everyone on the books. Guess which one was utter chaos this year. When you are in an industry where it takes a long time to get new staff productive (whether that's the time taken for security clearance at airports, or the time taken to train staff on the railway) you need to plan on a long-term basis. You can't just take passenger figures from the 21/22 financial year (much of which was still under covid restrictions) and use that as a basis for forward planning. And again the passenger and revenue figures from operators such as TPE and Avanti will be suppressed by the unreliability of the service. Unreliability caused by the tight control the government has over every aspect of the railway.

By the way, demand for public transport in Germany dipped during the pandemic too. Are the German government making cuts? No, they started offering generous discounts to tempt people back, including unlimited local travel for one month with a cost of only €9.

I don’t know if having fewer staff is going be bad.

whenever I travel, and I travel a lot, I see staff milling around, looking at their phones, not doing much.

You are very fortunate to be able to travel independently. A lot of people actually rely on station staff to assist them.

As for the 'on their phones' comment, they have work phones which send out regular emails advising of line status and anything going on. Set changes, cancellations, late running's. They are supposed to look at their phones. It's part of their job to receive this information and act upon it/pass it on to customers

@Iamthewombat Oh dear, you re really struggling to make any sort of sense now.. you linked dividends to pension funds not me... you obviously have zero idea of the diversification of such funds.
I doubt the UK wants to fund the pensions of people in Holland and Germany.... or their railways.

If the CEO has an x% pay rise, then he or she shouldn't expect the workers to have less... its called leadership.

Bottom line is that people struggling to heat their houses etc should not be expected to have a real terms pay cut, whilst at the same 100s of millions taken out of the UK by these subsidised companies.

The model is totally flawed... yet another Tory screw up.

Airline isn’t a great example as we have been past restrictions suppressing demand for many months

ONS shows why it’s still down by nearly 50% in SE - higher earner commuters are sticking with hybrid or wfh patterns.

If you wanted a bounce it would have happened as it did when travel restrictions eased

Generous of you to
assume they are looking at work phones. They are not, in my experience. And even if they did, they are never able to give you to simplest of information, they always say “ we are not given any information “ if you ask, so I don’t see the point of their “work phones” anyway.

As for assistance, surely one member staff can do it? There is no need of dozens of them wasting their time.

Generous of you to
assume they are looking at work phones. They are not, in my experience.

How on earth would you know

And even if they did, they are never able to give you to simplest of information, they always say “ we are not given any information “ if you ask, so I don’t see the point of their “work phones” anyway.

The point of their work phones extends further than 'the simplest of information'

As for assistance, surely one member staff can do it? There is no need of dozens of them wasting their time.

You do know all stations don't have 'dozens' of staff? I already mentioned this. If the one member of staff goes, that leaves none. Which was the point of my post you fist responded to.

Do you really want to get into this? OK. Why were central bank base rates cut to the bone during the credit crunch? Remember that? Why was quantitative easing expanded during that period? Do you realise that both of these things drive gilt and bond yields down?

FGS! You need to read "Finance for Dummies!"

You clearly haven't a clue what your talking about and have zero idea of what a high gilt yield actually means or the costs it imposes on the GOvt with huge increases in Govt borrowing.

They are not necessarily a good thing .... perhaps you think Truss causing yields to rocket and value of gilts to became untradeable was a good thing?

Look at German bond yields compared to Argentina... in your world Argentina is doing well lol!