Great Western Coffee Shop

Notice that Looe Branch is bustitution today and also Falmouth and Newquay Branches affected by shortage of train crews.    I have found that this has often happened on Sundays on the Cornish Branches.

It hasn't been a good weekend for the Looe Branch.  Yesterday much of the service was lost due to problems with the token instruments at Liskeard and Coombe Junction.

It's not just Cornwall.

Across the network there are cancellations, alterations, ticket office closures, lack of dispatch staff...

All due to staff shortages.

This is what comes of trying to run a service with the goodwill of staff when that goodwill is not forthcoming.

If I am not mistaken there is a "ban" on working RDOs at the moment as part of the dispute that caused the strike a couple of weeks ago. Seems to have the biggest impact on Sunday's.

The Looe line was running this evening or at least a 150 was in the bay platform at liskeard about 1910.

       If it was in the bay platform, i would imagine it will be there overnight as it requires a guard too change the points, too bring it of the branch.

I didn't think there was any formal withdrawal of labour of the moment.  

Sunday working relies on staff willing to work overtime, but they don't have to.  At the moment with the hope of decent weather (!) and school holidays many staff have probably decided they have things they wish to do and so have opted not to take overtime on offer.

A lot of the shortages today were down to a lack of drivers many of whom belong to ASLEF who are not officially in dispute at present.

Meanwhile have a thought for one train manager who did decide to work today and was physically assaulted on an HST from Paddington tonight.

You're both right - there is a recommendation of not working overtime I thought. So not a withdrawal of labour as such

Similar again today (Saturday) in Cornwall with mass cancellations on Falmouth, Newquay and Looe Branches.

Do rail staff have an option on not working Saturdays as well as Sundays?

As far a Saturdays are concerned it all depends where the rest day falls in the week, the roster may have worked out will all the leave this time of year with a rest day roster for a Saturday.  Rest day working is overtime which of course is voluntary add to this any train crew that is off sick

............and this is another reason why the public have such a negative view of the railways, ensuring enough staff are available to run a service is hardly a difficult concept for any Business, meanwhile thousands of people are inconvenienced.

It is if there is a shortage of staff with the right skills as there are in many industries in this countries. Some people seem to think that there are huge numbers of people of any skill just waiting for a job.  That may be true of some skills, but not many. Politicians for example who think nothing of promising to employ an extra 5,000 when there aren't enough to fill the vacancies that already exist. Ditto nurses.

Network Rail cannot find enough skilled Engineers (not the only ones actually).

I understand that if you can find the right people to train it still takes a while and then they might just go and work for another company.   

The Looe services were re-instated at the expense of one of the trains running on the Falmouth Branch once it was realised it is Looe Carnival this evening and replacement road coaches probably wouldn't be the best idea.

........... and there are a lot people who don't want to work in public services especially railways because of the shift work with its 6 day roster which includes being rostered over weekends, there are quite frankly jobs with the same level of pay with more social hours

The traveling public certainly don't want to pay for lots of train crew sitting on hot standby just in case a college goes sick and the TOCs will work to the lean and mean keep the over heads down and the just in time model because they have to fund the bubbly at the share holders meeting they are after all a for dividend company and the first rule the board has to work to is make a profit.

So when there are shortages of skills people tend to go for the jobs with the most social hours...

Fine, but I think the point is, that if you do choose to work in one of those public services, and then turn around and decide not to work when asked because of industrial action, don't expect the public to have too much sympathy for you. Because in most cases they won't...

Outside the public sector, the whole concept of strike action appears to belong to a different generation. One could have a long discussion as to why that is, but underlying it must be a greater degree of confidence that the employer won't just turn around and get someone else to do the job.




 

... because you decide not to work on your rest day?  What kind of society do we live in?  Most other organisations offering services at weekends etc. include this in their contracts of employment rather than relying on their staff to work their rest days. 


... there and I thought First Group was a private sector company.  Clearly I was mistaken.  I wonder if their shareholders know?

I work in the private sector, my employer doesn't open at weekends and opens weekdays 0800-1800, yet in my contract it states I must be available fully flexible 7 days a week 8am to 9pm. It states I will be given minimum 30 days notice of shifts. The provision is there that if they give me 30 days notice I will have to work a weekend.
Why can't a business operating almost 24/7 issue staff contracts for 7 day availability when a Monday to Friday company can incorporate this requirement into contracts.

It sounds like these employment contracts are stuck in the 70s/80s.

 Perhaps we should go back to the BR days then.  I remember pay rates were comparatively low
 that staff could not afford to take decent time off.
 Sunday's you were obliged to work your shift unless you could find cover yourself, having said that,
 certainly on the Southern staff were 'competing' for Sundays.

Exactly the same in the rail industry rosters are produced and published in advance so staff will know their work patterns, the time of notification does vary between employer.  Anything outside of the notified roster becomes overtime which is offered for staff to volunteer to do, which I suspect your employer would do the same if they required you to work with less than 30 days notice the compensation being either money or TOIL.  A degree of spare staff is built into each roster but it will not be massive amount.

What should happen is for railway workers contracts/terms and conditions to reflect the fact that they have chosen to work for a service organisation that runs a 7 day a week operation and that the expectation is that they will play a full part in that - as I understand it from other posters on here, Sunday working is currently on an optional basis - clearly this needs to change to reflect the fact that it's 2015 and that customers are now suffering as a result of the current arrangements...however with the Unions attitude to any change generally involving the threat of strike action the result of any such suggestion from Management will be howls of protests and strike ballots galore.

It's perfectly possible to have a good work/life balance which involves working some Sundays, millions of people in service industries achieve it every week, and keep their Businesses and customers moving.

I do not feel it reasonable to force existing staff to work on Sundays if this was not a requirement when they joined. I would not be pleased if I took a Monday to Friday job, and was subsequently told to work on Sundays.

In the case of new employees I feel that Sunday working should be a requirement, provided that this be made clear in the advertising for the job, or at the initial interview. There is nothing inherently unreasonable in this, and any prospective new employee who considers it unreasonable need not apply for the position.

Train drivers are relatively well paid, and so far as I am aware there is no shortage of applicants, though of course not all are suitable.

There is never a problem initialising negotiations to change terms and conditions the Unions will always entertain this where it falls over is what the employer is willing to offer and the work force are willing to accept.

What has to be remembered that for majority of the time staffing levels meet the timetable requirements (ie service offered to its customers), show me a service industry that substantially beats the railway industry in this respect.

There are indeed many industries that operate 7 days a week.  How many of them do so by relying on staff to offer to work on their rest days? 

What is the deal when they work rest days? Do they get another day as TOIL (time off in lieu) as well as overtime? If not and they do this on a regular basis they will become tired and are more likely to go off sick. That is when the work life balance becomes an issue.   

I don't think existing staff should be outside of their contracted days, however new starters should be given 7 day contracts, this doesn't seem the case.

Well there^s the airline industry for a start.  They do rather better than ensuring their staffing levels are OK the ^majority^ of the time.  I can^t recall the last time there was plane-replacement^bus to Benidorm.

There seems a consensus that existing staff should be allowed to keep their existing contract. I'd like to challenge whether it's reasonable that a school-leaver joining First Group today at 18, potentially with 50+ years of service ahead of them, should be entitled to reject a material change in their working conditions throughout their working life.

Even in the transport industry, many jobs just don't exist that did 50 years ago.  Fancy saying "nope, I'm a bus conductor/fireman/level crossing keeper and that's the only job I'll do, ...".   Working hours is just one particular facet of the job. The world moves on, and we all have to move on with it, whether it be hours/place of work/duties/use of technology/pension benefits etc.

Hits the nail on the head, I don't think anyone outside what appears to be the cloistered world of the railway industry would argue with that position, we've all had to move with the times on any number of issues.

Everyone should be entitled to adequate time off and a decent work/life balance, but the other side is that if you've chosen to work in a service industry, and that industry operates 7 days a week for its customers, you have to fit your expectations around that.....clearly the service is suffering due to these entrenched positions and that needs to change......there was a time when shops closed on Wednesday afternoons and all day Sundays, who could imagine that now?

The World changes, we all have to change with it.

Work 5 days out of 7, 2 days off. In reality you can probably make more of a day off in the week than on a Sunday when all the shops open only 6 hours and seem much busier.
A weekday off also allows for appointments at various Monday to Friday organisations.
Working Monday to Friday I need to use a days annual leave if I need time off for a weekday appointment.
There are certain positives to working weekends which I miss.
Small things like picking the kids up from school once a week I don't get the chance to do working Monday to Friday.

I work in the healthcare industry (albeit private)- we work a standard 37.5 hour week, over the Monday-Friday period, but over 3 days (12.5 hr shifts). This is the way it always has been. However my contract states that I may be required for work on any day, Monday to Sunday. They can't make me work overtime, but I can be told to work hours up to 37.5 per week any day of the week with a 30 day notice period. As far as I can see it's watertight for my employer, and I was fully aware of this when I took the job. Those who started before this contact was active a few years ago are not required to work weekends (obviously they could choose to). There is no bitterness or ill feeling between staff on each contract- it's just accepted. I sometimes think that certain areas of the rail industry, both management and staff, need a reality check.  

A lot of people seem to be missing the point here.  Bringing Sunday's into the working week isn't that straightforward. You would need to recruit a considerable amount of new staff to enable this to happen otherwise you'd find yourself short at other times during the week.
There was a figure floating around as to how much this would cost the company, I can't recall what it was but I will try to find out, but it was a huge amount.  The company can not afford to do it. 
1.  The cost of additional drivers, train managers & catering staff as mentioned plus,
2.  A payrise for all existing staff to include Sunday's in the working week (for example, Sunday's are worth say ^2000 a year.  ^2000 would need adding to the basic salary)
3.  Sunday is currently overtime and it is therefore not pensionable. Bringing it into the working week would, I think, have bigger financial implications for the company. (I'm not 100% upto speed on pensions, tax etc but I've heard this mentioned!)

Thanks for posting ... your first post, 'time flies by when'.  ;)

From that, it seems rather likely that you are a member of railway staff: please do stay with us, even if the reaction to your post may become a bit lively!   ::)

Welcome to the forum, and thanks for a very thought provoking first post.

The first point puzzles me, so would appreciate more explanation.  People don't work on Sunday for free, they either get time off in lieu or paid overtime. If the latter then it would seem to make more sense to make Sunday a normal working day, even if there is some offset as indicated in your second point in having to make some overall increase to remuneration. If the former, then you have to employ enough staff to avoid shortages in the week anyway.

Indeed - a very interesting introduction.

Let's see if I understand this.

At present, Henry (fictitious - I don't known driver or train manager Henry) works 40 hours regular times plus 6.66 hours of overtime per week. For that he earns ^1000 (also fictitious, for easy calculation).  At ^20 per hour, that's ^800 for the 40 hours and 1.5 x rate for the overtime.

If you were to remove the need for overtime so that staff worked just the normal working week of 40 hours, on my figures you would need 17 extra members of staff per 100 you have before the removal to carry the hours, and if you did this without amending your rates of pay, your existing staff would see a significant drop in their incomes; the post I'm following up suggests that the amount involved is around ^2000 per staff member per year.

I know my figures are likely to be significantly in error - I'm trying to make sure I understand the principle being raised.   I've not attempted to look at / understand the higher maths of tax, NI, pensions, paid holiday, employment overheads, and staff working shorter hours so loosing route knowledge more often ...

Now - having written all of that, the question should be asked as to how all the elements of the rail industry (I hesitate to use the word sides) got us into a situation in which certain weekend services seem to be being cancelled with a frequency far in excess of what's good for business.  It sounds a bit like the fare system - not clever in some ways, and yet very hard to get from where we are to a system which is clever without some severe waves.   

By the way, don't I recall that Sunday services aren't included in performance measures, or did I get that wrong? If I'm right, would that not be an incentive to let all short-staffing issues fall to Sundays where you're not going to be penalised?

P.S.   Welcome to the forum  ;D

It seems that Par Depot is the location largely involved.

That can be one of the problems with smaller depots as, for example, the effect of one more person going sick can't as easily be absorbed by the rest of the establishment as it could be at a larger depot.  I'm not sure how many guards are based at Par, but the driver depot only has an establishment of 32, which means on a typical summer Saturday there might be a pool of around 20 available to cover all the shifts for that day.  If two were to go sick, or be unavailable to drive for other reasons then you're very quickly in trouble.  Same applies for the guards.

If you're rolling Sundays into the working week, that's another day of say, 14 hours (estimate) that needs covering by two shifts. So you need additional staff to cover those shifts/hours if you're not going to rely on overtime.

So that's additional pensionable (& other salary benefits) pay instead of, say x2 earnings for those working (with no other benefits costs on top)....so, yes, a lot higher costs.

Sunday working is paid at time and a quarter, whilst all other overtime is time , which some people feel  isn't worthwhile

Wow....I'm not sure I'd do Sunday overtime at 1.25 either. Might have some support here. Ought to be at least x1.5

.....just a thought, surely there is something in the franchise agreement about FGW ensuring that there are sufficient staff available to run the advertised service?

Just as other TOCS have been penalised when unable to run Sunday services (London Midland jumps to mind here), the ORR have penalised them.

So continued problems (outside strike action) will probably be watched very closely

Thanks that's interesting......but I guess they aren't being penalised enough to up the overtime pay, recruit more drivers/guards and/or change contracts to oblige people to work on Sundays?

LM I think did a recruitment drive & upped their wages I believe

..........perhaps that's what FGW will need to do?

Have to wait & see....LM were one of the worst payers on hourly rate. FGW aren't

Upping the wages won't make much of a difference, more so for the London depots.  Not everything is about money!   :)

We can expect another Saturday of disruption tomorrow 8th August due to train crew shortages. A message has gone out to staff saying:

.............shortages caused by............?

General shortage ie unable to recruit sufficient staff, staff on leave, staff off sick and perhaps someone dropped a big one when planning the roster

And, going off at a tangant very briefly here, we already have a revealing topic on the subject of Uncovered Train Crew: see http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=9551.0  ::)

Only casualty today was the Loco Hauled due to no Penzance Train Manager.  No problems on Cornish Branches.

I hadn't seen anything but did wonder when I saw both 57604 and 57605 in long rock this afternoon.

The Bristol HST looked like it had been recovered at some point with its tow bar thing out at the front.

57604 hitched a lift on rear of 1C99 last night to drag a crippled HST from Penzance to Laira.

The Bristol liveried one by any chance? That was in long rock with its tow bar thing sticking out.

Looks like it's affecting the Reading - Gatwick service today, not great for those with flights to catch.