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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: How would you like GWR to handle their inability to crew all trains timetabled?
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on: November 28, 2024, 09:10:29
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Have Sundays always been completely reliant on overtime workers, or was there a time (in the recent past) when people were rostered to work on Sundays?
All drivers (except for a small number on special ‘accommodated’ rosters due to personal circumstances) are rostered to work Sundays. Many drivers, in recent post privatisation history at least, have always had a committed rostered Sunday agreement. They should work them unless they or rostering department can cover them with someone else. You can’t take a day off from your annual leave allocation and if you go sick you don’t get sick pay. The HSS▸ drivers (and a few others, notably Paddington GWR▸ ) have an agreement whereby with 5 days notice they can make themselves unavailable without having to find cover for their rostered shift. The phrase ‘reliant on overtime workers’ is therefore both correct and incorrect if that makes sense? A commitment that’s not worth the paper it’s written on. I know drivers who for every committed Sunday phone in ‘fatigued’ or ‘sick’ the night before and then resume on the Sunday evening for Monday. No disciplinary action can be taken because it is classed as overtime, and you can’t discipline someone for not doing overtime. There are also plenty who email rosters on Tuesday when the Sunday sheets are issued saying they’re not coming in, and don’t, and nothing more is said. Because it’s still overtime. They don’t get paid but that’s fine because they don’t want to be paid because they don’t want to work overtime. You’ve got some conscientious drivers who don’t do either, but I would hazard a guess they are in the minority. |
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: How would you like GWR to handle their inability to crew all trains timetabled?
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on: November 27, 2024, 10:21:45
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The only reliable number of trains that could be operated on a Sunday is 0. No drivers are obliged to work Sundays. Plenty do but many more do not. You’ll find it’s always the same few faces working on a Sunday, there are a good number who never work any. So if some of those ‘few faces’ are on leave or have other plans the service falls apart. And the problem at the moment is the few have become fewer as a result of the payrise.
Is that on the few for taking a couple of Sundays off or the many who don’t work any at all?
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion
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on: October 26, 2024, 10:40:09
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Make Sunday’s double or even triple time.
Very simple.
Indeed. Make (train driver) poverty history. Well no, obviously the problem is now that drivers are so much not in poverty that they don’t need to work overtime to bump up tho salary. Would you work an extra optional day each week if you didn’t have to? The only long term answer is to put Sundays inside the normal working week. I don’t think anybody will be paying for the 14% increase in drivers to cover it any time soon. |
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion
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on: October 26, 2024, 10:34:54
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Drivers will always take the money. If double or triple pay is offered more will volunteer to come in.
The problem with reducing the timetable is that the number of drivers who have to come in each week is zero. Those that do are all volunteering. You will also find that some drivers are more keen to come in than others, and if the ‘keen shift’ are all early Monday they obviously can’t work Sunday afternoon/evening (12 hours rest required between shifts), whereas the following week it could be a lot better when they have a late shift on the Monday.
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion
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on: June 30, 2024, 15:41:46
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I can’t see Sunday’s ever becoming part of the working week.
TfW have managed to get Sunday’s inside the working week. They reportedly had to increase the number of drivers by a third, around an extra 300 drivers alone with an increase in salary to £71000. Even with my level of mathematical ability you can see what the major stumbling block is! Your best is enhancing the hourly rate.
£71,000 a year + a 4 day week? ..................remind me why ASLEF» keep going on strike?  They don’t in Wales. That’s the point. |
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion
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on: June 26, 2024, 07:18:42
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Yesterday really wasn’t sickness or leave. It was down to staff not doing overtime. Not co ordinated, just choosing not to because of the football. This is how reliant the railway is on staff working overtime every single day. Which is why when the weather is nice the cancellations always go up, because people want to spend their days off with friends and family rather than at work.
If you want to work every single day (excluding hidden restrictions), you can, and earn an absolute fortune. There is always overtime available. There have never been and probably will never be enough staff to run the railway, because it’s cheaper that way.
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Shortage of train crews on Great Western Railway - ongoing discussion
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on: June 14, 2024, 17:29:50
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The DfT» have authorised GWR▸ to pay an additional enhanced rate of x1.5 per Rest Day Worked. This is up from x1.25.
Good news for weekdays as it means more drivers will be likely to apply in the week. Bad news for Sundays as they remain at x1.25 so will pay less per additional shift.
Thank you for that news ... is that in effect sacrificing Sundays to get the rest of the week reliable, and also to buy some goodwill (?) from drivers by giving them a way of earning more? If it is, it seems a pretty desperate move as we head into the summer/BBQ season, to potentially make what is already an extremely flaky Sunday service even less reliable at a time when securing leisure traffic is critical to the railways future viability. It's hard to believe that this issue still remains unresolved after so many years. Feeble management & intransigent Trade Unions combining to perpetuate a truly ridiculous state of affairs. I know it’s been said before, but the Sunday issue really isn’t down to the intransigence of the trade unions. Drivers sign contracts that say they don’t have to work Sundays, so they don’t. Even if it is ‘committed overtime’ as per the GWR driver contract, nothing happens if drivers don’t come in. It can’t, because it’s overtime, and therefore can’t be enforced. Aslef have been banging the ‘Sundays inside the working week’ drum for years, and it’s largely fallen on deaf ears, because it costs more. It requires a 14% increase in drivers altogether. But that’s not the fault of the drivers who don’t want to work when their contracts say they don’t have to. It needed sorting in 1997, and it needs sorting now. But nobody will pay for it, so we continue with this charade every year. |
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All across the Great Western territory / Across the West / Re: Why are GWR *still* routinely short of train crew
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on: June 02, 2024, 21:09:47
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I think the problem comes in because a fairly large proportion of drivers don’t work any Sundays at all. That means that those who want to can basically pick and choose which ones to do. But the problem is that sometimes they can’t (late turn Saturday to early turn Monday) or don’t want to, and at times like school holidays in the summer, some of them decide they’d rather be with family/friends
The vast majority of drivers at GWR▸ now have a commitment to working Sundays in their contracts. A commitment, not a requirement. What is the penalty for failing to show up for overtime? (all Sundays are classed as overtime, ‘commitment’ or not). |
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