Great Western Coffee Shop

i have heard a rumour engineering staff have been balloted for strike action.

this is only a rumour and is not confirmed nor do i know why they have been balloted.

if it is true that will be some more bad press for fgw and also does not look good for the meetings with the government.

can anyone confirm this is true or indeed if it is a load of rubbish for that matter??ideally a member of fgw staff should be able to shed a bit more light on this.

(Topic now linked to calendar - Lee Fletcher.)

Found this on BBC website

Rail staff to strike in pay row 
Rail maintenance workers and cleaners have agreed to stage a one-day strike in a row over hours and overtime.

The Rail Maritime and Transport Union said 400 of its members at First Great Western will walk out on 18 May.

The union claims the company has refused to pay an enhanced overtime rate or agree a set 35-hour week.

The workers, based at Bristol, Reading, Oxford, Penzance, Exeter, Plymouth, Swansea and London, voted three to one in favour or taking industrial action.

The Union's general secretary Bob Crow said: "The vast majority of First Great Western engineering and cleaning staff are still paid the flat hourly rate for overtime rather than the time-and-a-quarter enjoyed by other staff including train crews."

Mr Crow said the union had no alternative but to order a strike.

 

Oh for crying out loud, how much longer before this idiot is removed from a position of power that enables him to inflict grief on thousands of commuters? The "vast majority of FGW engineering and cleaning staff" signed a contract when they took their job that explained how they would be paid. If they didn't like it, they shouldn't have taken the job. If they don't like it now, they should quit.

If you dont like your job - go find another one

And if you cant, maybe your job is not as bad as you thought it was.

If I dont like my client, I walk and find a new one - may mean I'm not earning for a couple of months but that is MY CHOICE - if the money was that important I'd stick it out. 

And as I've said before, you tak a job, you make your choice - dont expect me to feel sympathy for you when it affects MY income.  I am not a charity - if I cant get to work I dont earn (unlike a lot of employees with sick pay and holiday pay etc) - strikers have 0 support from me.

Noe one makes you have an employments - you are not slaves - if its that bad, just quit and allow someone who appreciates the job to do it

since i first posted i have more details and must admit i agree with the staff for the industrial action.

why should us train crew etc get enhanced rates for overtime but the engineering and cleaners do not? we all work for fgw so should all be treated the same.

Because they were the T&C when you took the job.

Just because someone else does better does not give you the right to disrupt the public

If another contractor is on more than me, do I down tools and say I want the same.

No, I was happy with my rate when I took the gig, just because someone else had better bargaining skills does not give me the right to down tools.

Anyone who strikes should be fired with no severance pay - you have the right to withdraw your labour, employer should have the right to say see you good bye

Spose I would support them if the unit's were actually cleaned properly once in a while....... but they're not, on a unit today that the inside was just filthy, as in grime and dirt rather than litter, the cleaners are supposed to clean to that standard but don't bother!

Lets not go into this again. I dont feel like proving you wrong on every single level once again ;)

In this current business climate it's simply not feasable for people to keep switching jobs if and when they like. Not to mention that rail  engineers arn't exactly  in demand. It's a case of move to another region and hope you can get a job there if you were to leave FGW. So yeah, completely practical...

I do agree with you on the standard of cleaning (or, rather, not cleaning), vacman.  There's a lot of accumulated grime and dirt that shows some units just haven't been looked after for a long time.

Do the cleaners perhaps take the view that those units are so old, nobody will notice?

So if the strike goes ahead on 18/05 how will that inpact us, the commuters?

I also have no sympathy with the strikers, they were aware of T&C's and rates of pay when they took the job! Strike is such an old fashioned way of dealing with gripes, and should be outlawed! Whilst we're at it with Human rights legislation I'm not convinced that there is a place for TU's anymore.

You do realise that 18/05 is a sunday????  :-[

In that case I suspect the trains will be even more filthy than normal

If the strike goes ahead, I would expect disruption on the evening before the strike, as Maintenance staff control access to the depots. So sets would either have to be got onto depot prior to stike action, with the likelyhood they won't get back off depot or left in stations / sidings.
Certainly with HST's, unless management are going to go on depot and fuel them overnight and work the signalling to get them back off depot. The majority of sets may be good for one journey the following day, unless they are in the West of England. Due to the fuel range of an HST we work to being 1120 miles and most HSTs cover between 900 and 1080 miles a day.

Um, was going to go out for first day of TT. May be going out for something entirely different now.

From the RMT website

'The breakdown in industrial relations centres on the company's consistent refusal to pay an enhanced rate of pay for overtime and or to concede a 35-hour week at the Reading and Exeter depots.'

Judging from the above, it seems that the former Thames Trains  and Wessex staff are trying to get the same terms & conditions as the rest of the first group, good luck to them.  If it disrupts a few commuters then tough, the employers in this industry who are profit driven will try to screw all the staff over if they think they can get away with it.

So if they get their 1.25 overtime rate, does that mean my salary will be increased into line with the higher levels that ex-Wessex/Thames staff are now enjoying?  The words Cake + Eat It spring to mind.  ::)

Presumably the 'higher levels' enjoyed are for different contractural commitments perhaps, a 42 hour week as opposed to 35 and a flat overtime rate.(That's my interpretation of what's implied on the RMT website) The unions should be pushing for parity for all FGW staff irrespective of which company they came from.  Unfortunately due to the fact that union membership appears to be dwindling, some staff are on personal contracts and the lack of collective bargaining, the management have been able to get away with it up to now. 

Of course the ideal scenario would be:- British Rail = Closed Shop = Collective Bargaining = Parity  but then again I am stuck in the past!  ;D ;
.

Nope, 35hour contract in the cases I know anyway -- it may be different in this instance though.

I'm not moaning, as i'm happy with my contract, it just irritates me a little that those been offering more to start with, want even more or they're off on strike.


Not a bad equation in my opinion -- and I hated maths  ;D

Here is the official FGW response, from some print out on the messroom table


"FGW reinforces enhanced benefits commitment for engineering teams


Yesterday the RMT announced that it will ask its members in our engineering team to take strike action on Sunday 18 May, over what it calls our ^refusal to pay [engineering grades] an enhanced rate of pay for overtime and or to concede a 35-hour week.^

As far back as last December, we made a clear commitment to union representatives to give all our engineering teams a 35-hour working week and payment of overtime at time and quarter. Our proposals also include introducing 100 per cent pensionable pay in future for all depot teams.

While talking to colleagues at depots, we also made clear our commitment to introducing these benefits directly to colleagues.

Other unions voted against striking over this issue. Out of more than 1,000 engineering colleagues less than 135 voted for strike action. It is disappointing that such a small mandate has the potential to cause disruption to such a large number of customers and colleagues.

Strike action will benefit no-one. There is no need for colleagues to be out of pocket by taking strike action over something we have already promised.

We expect colleagues who are not RMT members and those not subject to the ballot to be working as normal. Contingency plans are in place to ensure services for customers are not affected should the strike action go ahead.


Engineering director"

make what you will out of that!

Damn that FGW are so unreasonable  ::) ;)

Commitment
Commitment
Commitment

I note there is no 'commitment'  to a timescale by FGW for all this to happen? 

100% pensionabe pay is good though as long as people can afford the increased contributions.  Don't forget it will be from now & not (usually) backdated to when people joined.

It will probably be backdated to the 1st April, don't forget, all FGW staff had a 5.4% pay rise this year aswell.

Further related links.
http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2008/05/pay_conditons_dispute_engineer.html#more

http://www.rmtbristol.org.uk/2008/05/first_great_western_trainmaint.html#more

http://thisisplymouth.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=133464&command=displayContent&sourceNode=133158&contentPK=20617501&folderPk=78031&pNodeId=133174

no takes affect 8th june

Oxford Mail article link on the cancellation of the strike.
http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.2275810.0.train_staff_strike_halted.php

From the RMT website

24-hour strike action planned for Sunday, May 18 was called off after the company dropped plans to extend the use of contractors within engineering and agreed to pay all overtime within the engineering grades at a time and quarter with effect from Sunday June 8 2008.

The company also agreed to implement 35-hour week rosters and a 25 per cent increase in earnings for some of the lowest paid cleaning grade members.

RMT general secretary Bob Crow congratulated members on sticking together and standing up to a management that had not previously been prepared to treat staff equally.

^The vast majority of FGW engineering and cleaning staff were still being paid the flat hourly rate for their overtime, rather than the time-and-a-quarter enjoyed by other FGW staff, including train-crew and station staff.

Staff at Bristol, Reading, Oxford, Penzance, Exeter, Plymouth, Swansea, and Old Oak Common in London had voted by a three-to-one margin for strike action.

^Due to the steadfastness of members at FGW, these inequalities have been removed.

^This once more shows what can be achieved if all grades organise and work together in one industrial union.

This month RMT also launched a charter for train maintenance depot workers to address the issues of disparity between pay rates, overtime enhancements and employment conditions.

^This is the first step in making our members' wishes a reality,^ Bob Crow said.

ends

Well done, no mention of the 100% pensionable pay though?