Train Operating Companies v Trade Unions dispute - ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[stuving]

I don't think we've seen much from ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) themselves on this board.  I did go and look for a statement on their website a while ago, and found nothing - which may explain that.

Today they do have one - new I think. Here it is in full:

Why ASLEF is taking strike action on Southern Rail

ASLEF represents nearly all the train drivers in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom), across every company. Our members are professionals who safely and securely transport millions of members of the British public from A to B each day...

Driving a train carrying more than 1,000 people is a demanding and responsible role which our members take extremely seriously. The job of a train driver is to drive the train – and that requires total concentration.

Going on strike is an action of last resort for any worker. The reason for today’s strike action on Southern Rail is because of a dispute with the company. Southern is withdrawing safety trained guards from its trains without consulting its staff or negotiating with their trade union reps. The driver of a 12 car trains carrying 1,100 passengers in the rush hour will have just two seconds to check 24 sets of doors. Professional train drivers know that this risks passengers’ safety. They may not see someone falling between the train and the platform, nor someone caught in the doors. And in an emergency, passengers may be at risk if the driver is working alone on the train.

With government backing, the company has broken longstanding agreements with the union that make sure train drivers can do their job safely. And worse, they haven’t properly consulted but have tried to impose changes through bullying and intimidation. No wonder there’s been such a huge loss of trust and goodwill on the part of union members towards the company. And it is this that has left us no option but to go on strike.

ASLEF’s constructive relationships with other rail companies show there is a better way. Earlier this year, we negotiated a positive agreement with ScotRail in Scotland. Southern have not been willing to follow this example and negotiate an agreement with us.

The dispute between ASLEF and Southern has also been made worse by political interference. It was clear that the Southern franchise was failing even before this dispute – it doesn’t even employ enough drivers to run all its scheduled services! Nonetheless, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has lined up behind the discredited company as it has made a mockery of its passengers and staff.

With record passenger numbers travelling on the trains, we need more rail staff, not fewer. We will get better services for passengers by investing in modern railway infrastructure and rolling stock - not by downgrading guards, taking them off trains and leaving drivers to manage trains on their own, something they are not prepared to do, given the risk to passengers.

We understand the anger felt by of regular commuters on the Southern franchise area and we share their frustration. Thank you for supporting your professional train drivers to keep you safe when you travel. If you want to show your support, tell @southernrail to abandon their plans to take safety trained guards off their trains.

I think it's a little bit muddled, perhaps, and it does not include some points made earlier. It's not quoted because I agree, just so we do see in this discussion what they are saying themselves.

[stuving]

Here are a couple of items from ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about)'s news archive. First, some evidence to a commons committee:

ASLEF: Why DOO^▸ (Driver-Only Operation (that is, trains which operate without carrying a guard)) is not safe

28 Nov 2016

Mick Whelan, ASLEF's general secretary, who is back in front of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee this afternoon, to talk about safety on Britain’s railways, is to tell MPs^▸ (Member of Parliament) about the problems on the platform/train interface and explain why DOO is now inherently unsafe.

Giving evidence about the industrial dispute with Southern, and the failure of franchising, he told MPs:‘It’s been our policy for more than 15 years to seek to eradicate driver only operation. DOO was designed for three-car 317s on the Bed-Pan [Bedford to St Pancras] line in the early 1980s when it was all about managed decline at the fag end of British Rail. An increase in the number of passengers we are carrying every day means you have 1,100 passengers on a 12 car train and just two seconds to check 24 sets of doors and that’s simply not adequate to deal safely and properly with the travelling public.’

When Mick was challenged by MPs over why, if we think DOO is unsafe, we drive trains with driver only operation, he said: ‘The difference between us, and the DfT^» (Department for Transport - about), and companies like Southern, is that we’re honourable. Where we have agreements we work to those agreements, even when we are seeking to change them because we think they’re inherently unsafe. And the industry is now catching up. DOO is not fit for purpose. There are blind spots all over the place.’

And this is Mick Whelan's response to the ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) (Chief Inspector's) report. Not quite as intemperate as his first comments.

ASLEF's reponse to ORR report

5 Jan 2017

Mick Whelan, general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers’ union, today responded to the ORR report on DOO. Mick said: ‘Despite what Southern Railways is disingenuously claiming, the report from the Office of Rail and Road does not give driver only operation a clean bill of health. It doesn’t say it is safe, merely that it can be safe.

‘You will notice that Ian Prosser, HM Chief Inspector of Railways, is careful to qualify his remarks and say “with suitable equipment, proper procedures, and competent staff in place” it can be a method of working. And, indeed, Ian goes on to say that the ORR has made a long list of recommendations for further improvements because they fear it is not safe. Those recommendations, the company concedes, are not yet in place.

‘The ORR says, on visibility [point 8] that “not all stations meet this requirement”. It also says [point 11] that it has identified stations that suffer from dangerous overcrowding and “the viewing corridor will be difficult for the driver to observe and carry out the train safety check”.

‘The company seems to expect drivers to operate trains which it knows are unsafe –because it concedes the work the ORR wants done has not yet been completed –which proves, yet again, that this is all about putting profit before passenger safety.

‘The truth is that passengers, every time they are asked, want a second safety-critical person on their trains. On board to help the elderly, the young, and the disabled. The company, which doesn’t seem to care what passengers to think, want to take us one step closer to losing that second role.’

Mick added: ‘Comparisons with Thameslink – always being made by the company – are meaningless because Thameslink trains have station staff dispatch on every platform while Southern does not. In the Southern area, many stations are unmanned, or undermanned.

‘The industry’s approach is also spectacularly inconsistent. New rolling stock on four more franchises – Great Western, East Coast, Greater Anglia and TransPennine Express – has been procured with no provision for DOO. Because they know it’s not safe.’

What he means by that last point beats me. IEP^▸ (Intercity Express Program / Project.) can do DOO if you want - it's in the requirement. I doubt if anyone would sell you a train that can't, other than as a modification to take it out and fit blanking plates. But DOO-equipped isn't the same as doing DOO, is it?

[John R]

I'm wondering what card ASLEF^» (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen - about) will try to play on Merseyrail, where the trains are much shorter.  A large part of their argument now appears to be on the length of trains on Southern.

[TonyK]

Define affordable....

A level you can afford to pay to commute from the nearest affordable housing to your job.

[Chris from Nailsea]

In view of the widening implications of this particular industrial relations dispute, I've now expanded the heading of this topic to include all such discussion. 

[TM]

I would dread to think what would happen if a driver was taken ill between Paddington and Reading with no other crew. The train would be brought to a halt by the cab safety devices but with no announcements how long would it be before passengers would attempt to get out of the train?

Trains have run between Paddington and Reading with only a driver on board for over 20 years. All the turbo services do so.

[stuving]

A couple of weeks ago, somewhere I can't now find at all (maybe a radio interview?), I read some words of Mick Whelan's which mentioned the risk of prosecution. It was saying something like safety standards have shifted so far that now a driver risks prosecution for a mistake as it it was reckless, and courts are now willing to find guilty and impose prison sentences. Hence they want to make sure they are not trapped into having to make judgements on inadequate views and carrying the can for it. Something like that, anyway.

That would be the background to this, from the Evening Standard:

Southern Rail chiefs write to train drivers in direct personal appeal to end strikes

    dick Murray
    Thursday 22 December 2016 10:10 BST

Southern Railway chiefs today made a direct personal appeal to train drivers to end the crippling series of strikes.

They sidestepped the Aslef union by delivering letters straight to more than 1,000 drivers setting out details of an improved offer to end the nine-month dispute.

Sources say the offer was “dismissed out of hand” by union leaders last week but “drivers needed to know what was rejected on their behalf”.

In the letter, Charles Horton, chief executive of Southern’s parent company GTR pledges there will be no further increase in driver-only trains — the issue at the heart of the dispute — after next month.

And he tells the drivers: “I urge you to stop this industrial action, work with the company and encourage your union to engage constructively with us, so that we can all move forward into 2017 together for the benefit of passengers.” He said strike action had already caused “significant damage” to Southern and the rail industry.

The pledge not to increase the number of driver-only operation (DOO^▸ (Driver-Only Operation (that is, trains which operate without carrying a guard))) would leave nearly a third of the service — 30 per cent —running as it is now with guards operating the doors.

In the letter, Mr Horton pledges:

•     No further DOO on the current network for the next five years, without the agreement of Aslef, after the current programme ends next month
  
•     A special insurance/indemnity scheme for drivers to support anyone involved in any incident with a passenger and the operation of the doors
  
•     All older trains to be raised to modern specification with improved CCTV^▸ (Closed Circuit Tele Vision), driver communication and controls
  
•     An extra 100 safety trained on board supervisors have been recruited to boost the current DOO operation
  
•     No job or pay cuts

...

My bolding.

[ChrisB]

You may want to watch a very good debate with RMT^▸ (National Union of Rail, Maritime & Transport Workers)/CEO^▸ (Chief Executive Officer) Horton, an MP^▸ (Member of Parliament) on the Parliament Transport Committee and Carolyn Pidgeon from the London Assembly. The MP hit the nail on the head as to the distance between them. Simply whether the second staff member could be missing during disruption for part(s) of journeys

2030 on the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page) News Channel. Caught it purely by chance

[TonyK]

A link is here

[ChrisB]

A better one, seems it was on local BBC1 at the sane time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08bmsx7/southern-rail-crisis

[TonyK]

As close to a debate as I have seen.

[chrisr_75]

A better one, seems it was on local BBC1 at the sane time

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08bmsx7/southern-rail-crisis

I think you are mistaken, surely there hasn't been any sane time in this dispute?! 

[Electric train]

The last two posts imply that we should expect the unions to be our main safety authority, at least in the sense of being able to overrule whatever the government has set up. Really?

Unions certainly have a good claim to a prominent role, alongside operators and other players, but surely they should be making their case to the regulators. If they don't, or if (as it seems) that link isn't working, that needs to be addressed.

They do, they have an input into the RSSB^▸ (Rail Safety and Standards Board), ORR^» (Office of Rail and Road formerly Office of Rail Regulation - about) etc

Its when they (Unions) believe, rightly or wrongly, they are not being listened to it ends in the current situation.

[ChrisB]

Not being listened to = "what we say goes, or at least is worth another five grand in our paypackets"

Its no wonder they are beginning to be ignored

[old original]

As I see it, whilst the all-out strike days are the responsibility of the unions and the blame for the disruption laid at their door, on the other days when there is an overtime ban which causes cancellation of 20-25% of the services, surely the blame for this should be laid at the door of the company. If they cannot run more than 80% of an advertised service without getting staff to work more than their contract hours, to me they are not very good at management.

At least with the "all-out" days the passengers know that nothing will run. On the other days I suspect it's guesswork as to what will and what won't.